ady in evening dress.

Snow, however, began to thicken and fall fast; and Syme, having found
one glance at the wax lady quite sufficient to depress his spirits,
stared out instead into the white and empty street. He was considerably
astonished to see, standing quite still outside the shop and staring
into the window, a man. His top hat was loaded with snow like the hat of
Father Christmas, the white drift was rising round his boots and ankles;
but it seemed as if nothing could tear him away from the contemplation
of the colourless wax doll in dirty evening dress. That any human being
should stand in such weather looking into such a shop was a matter of
sufficient wonder to Syme; but his idle wonder turned suddenly into
a personal shock; for he realised that the man standing there was the
paralytic old Professor de Worms. It scarcely seemed the place for a
person of his years and infirmities.

Syme was ready to believe anything about the perversions of this
dehumanized brotherhood; but even he could not believe that the
Professor had fallen in love with that particular wax lady. He could
only suppose that the man's malady (whatever it was) involved some
momentary fits of rigidity or trance. He was not inclined, however, to
feel in this case any very compassionate concern. On the contrary,
he rather congratulated himself that the Professor's stroke and his
elaborate and limping walk would make it easy to escape from him and
leave him miles behind. For Syme thirsted first and last to get clear
of the whole poisonous atmosphere, if only for an hour. Then he could
collect his thoughts, formulate his policy, and decide finally whether
he should or should not keep faith with Gregory.

He strolled away through the dancing snow, turned up two or three
streets, down through two or three others, and entered a small Soho
restaurant for lunch. He partook reflectively of four small and quaint
courses, drank half a bottle of red wine, and ended up over black coffee
and a black cigar, still thinking. He had taken his seat in the upper
room of the restaurant, which was full of the chink of knives and the
chatter of foreigners. He remembered that in old days he had imagined
that all these harmless and kindly aliens were anarchists. He shuddered,
remembering the real thing. But even the shudder had the delightful
shame of escape. The wine, the common food, the familiar place, the
faces of natural and talkative men, made him almost feel