ing about everyday things while she darned socks.
Somewhere in his domestic heart Hartley considered sock-mending a
beautiful and symbolic act, and yet he could not picture Mrs. Wilder
occupied in such a fashion.

A man with a wife to go back to is never at the same loose end as a man
who has no need ever to be punctual for a solitary meal, and Hartley
walked quickly because he wanted to get clear of his depression, rather
than for any reason that compelled him to be up to time.

The gathering darkness drew out the flare over the city, and, here and
there, lamps dotted the road, until, turning up a short cut, he was into
the region of trams once more. The lighted cars, filled with gay Burmese
and soldiers from the British Regiment, and European-clad, dark-skinned
creatures of mixed races, looked cheerful and encouraged to better
thoughts. Hartley crossed the busy thoroughfare below the Pagoda steps
and went on quickly, for he recognized the outline of Mhtoon Pah on his
way to burn amber candles before his newly-erected shrine. He was in no
mood to talk to the curio dealer just then, and he avoided him carefully
and plunged down a tree-bowered road that led to the bridge, and from
the bridge to the hill-rise where his own gate stood open.

It pleased him to see that lamps were lighted in the house, and he felt
conscious that he was hungry, and would be glad of dinner; he made up
his mind to do himself well and rout the tormenting thoughts that
pursued him, and to-morrow he would see Francis Heath and have the whole
thing put on paper once and for all. He even whistled as he came along
the short drive and under the portico, where a night-scented flower
smelt strong and sweet. His boy met him with the information that there
was a Sahib within waiting. A Sahib who had evidently come to stay, for
a strange-looking servant in the veranda rose and salaamed, and sat down
again by his master's kit with the patience of a man who looks out upon
eternity.

Hartley hardly glanced at the servant. Visitors, tumbling from anywhere,
were not altogether unusual occurrences. Men on the way back from a
shoot in the jungles of Upper Burma, men who were old school friends and
were doing a leisurely tour to Japan and America, men of his own
profession who had leave to dispose of; all or any of these might arrive
with a servant and a portmanteau. Whoever it was, Hartley was
predisposed to give him a welcome. He had come just when he was wan