demeanour of a racecourse tout. But
Concepcion seemed not to mind at all, and G.J. remembered that she was
deeply inured to publicity. Her portrait had already appeared in the
picture papers along with that of Queen, but the papers had deemed it
necessary to remind a forgetful public that Mrs. Carlos Smith was
the same lady as the super-celebrated Concepcion Iquist. The taxi-man
hesitated for an instant on hearing the address, but only for an
instant. He had earned the esteem and regular patronage of G.J. by a
curious hazard. One night G.J. had hailed him, and the man had said in
a flash, without waiting for the fare to speak, "The Albany, isn't it,
sir? I drove you home about two months ago." Thenceforward he had been
for G.J. the perfect taxi-man.

In the taxi Concepcion said not a word, and G.J. did not disturb her.
Beneath his superficial melancholy he was sustained by the mere joy
of being alive. The common phenomena of the streets were beautiful
to him. Concepcion's calm and grieved vitality seemed mysteriously
exquisite. He had had similar sensations while walking along Coventry
Street after his escape from the explosion of the bomb. Fatigue and
annoyance and sorrow had extinguished them for a time, but now that
the episode of Queen's tragedy was closed they were born anew. Queen,
the pathetic victim of the indiscipline of her own impulses, was gone.
But he had escaped. He lived. And life was an affair miraculous and
lovely.

"I think I've been here before," said he, when they got out of the
taxi in a short, untidy, indeterminate street that was a cul-de-sac.
The prospect ended in a garage, near which two women chauffeurs were
discussing a topic that interested them. A hurdy-gurdy was playing
close by, and a few ragged children stared at the hurdy-gurdy, on the
end of which a baby was cradled. The fact that the street was midway
between Curzon Street and Piccadilly, and almost within sight of the
monumental new mansion of an American duchess, explained the existence
of the building in front of which the taxi had stopped. The entrance
to the flats was mean and soiled. It repelled, but Concepcion
unapologetically led G.J. up a flight of four stone steps and round
a curve into a little corridor. She halted at a door on the ground
floor.

"Yes," said G.J. with admirable calm, "I do believe you've got the
very flat I once looked at with a friend of mine. If I remember
it didn't fill the bill because the tenant wo