think that you regard me as a Fadge-like
individual, a natural Fadgeite.'

Marian laughed.

'There's no danger of my thinking that.'

But the fog was making their eyes water and getting into their throats.
By when they reached Tottenham Court Road they were both thoroughly
uncomfortable. The 'bus had to be waited for, and in the meantime they
talked scrappily, coughily. In the vehicle things were a little better,
but here one could not converse with freedom.

'What pestilent conditions of life!' exclaimed Jasper, putting his face
rather near to Marian's. 'I wish to goodness we were back in those quiet
fields--you remember?--with the September sun warm about us. Shall you
go to Finden again before long?'

'I really don't know.'

'I'm sorry to say my mother is far from well. In any case I must go at
Christmas, but I'm afraid it won't be a cheerful visit.'

Arrived in Hampstead Road he offered his hand for good-bye.

'I wanted to talk about all sorts of things. But perhaps I shall find
you again some day.'

He jumped out, and waved his hat in the lurid fog.

Shortly before the end of December appeared the first number of The
Current. Yule had once or twice referred to the forthcoming magazine
with acrid contempt, and of course he did not purchase a copy.

'So young Milvain has joined Fadge's hopeful standard,' he remarked,
a day or two later, at breakfast. 'They say his paper is remarkably
clever; I could wish it had appeared anywhere else.

Evil communications, &c.'

'But I shouldn't think there's any personal connection,' said Marian.

'Very likely not. But Milvain has been invited to contribute, you see.

'Do you think he ought to have refused?'

'Oh no. It's nothing to me; nothing whatever.'

Mrs Yule glanced at her daughter, but Marian seemed unconcerned. The
subject was dismissed. In introducing it Yule had had his purpose;
there had always been an unnatural avoidance of Milvain's name in
conversation, and he wished to have an end of this. Hitherto he had felt
a troublesome uncertainty regarding his position in the matter. From
what his wife had told him it seemed pretty certain that Marian was
disappointed by the abrupt closing of her brief acquaintance with the
young man, and Yule's affection for his daughter caused him to feel
uneasy in the thought that perhaps he had deprived her of a chance of
happiness. His conscience readily took hold of an excuse for justifying
the course he had followed