--"

"What is queer?" Selwyn stooped forward and broke a lump of coal
from which sprang blazing reds and curling blues of flame. "Why did
you stop?"

"I was thinking it was queer you should know so much of the history
of the human race and so little of its life to-day. As a shrugger
you stand off."

"For the love of Heaven don't let's get on that!"

With swift movement he took a cigar from one pocket, a match-case
from another. "May I smoke?" he asked, irritably, and as I nodded he
struck a match and held it to the cigar in his mouth, then threw it
in the fire. Presently he looked at me.

"Why didn't you tell me you were coming here--for a while?"

"It would have meant more argument. You would not have approved."

"I most assuredly would not. But that would have made no difference.
My disapproval would not have prevented."

"No. I should have come, of course. But I was tired, and useless
discussion does no good. We would have said again the same old
things we've said so often, and I didn't want to say them or hear
them. One of the reasons why I came down here was to talk with
people who weren't born with made-up minds, and who don't have high
walls around their homes."

"There are times when I would like to put them around you! If you
were mine I'd do it."

"No, you wouldn't. You know perfectly well what I would do with
walls. That is the kind you think should be around a woman. But we
won't get on that, either. Were you ever in Scarborough Square
before?"

Selwyn nodded and looked, not at me, but at the spirals of smoke from
his cigar. "My grandfather used to live on the opposite side of the
Square, and as a kid I was brought occasionally to see him. I barely
remember him. He died thirty years ago."

"It's difficult to imagine this was once the fashionable part of the
city, and that gorgeous parties and balls--" I sat upright and
laughed. "I went to a party last night. It was a wonderful party."

"You did what?"

Selwyn's cigar was held suspended on its way to his lips. "Whose
party? Where was it?"

"Two doors from here. The girl who gave it, or rather, to whom it
was given, is named Bryce--Evelyn Bryce. She is a friend of Mrs.
Mundy's and is a printer. I never knew a girl printer until I came
down here."

Selwyn's look of amazed disapprobation had its usual effect. I
hadn't intended to mention the party, and instantly I went into its
details.

"All kinds of people we