. I'll explain. This is me explaining.
Behind this fork. I see what you mean. Perfectly well. I'm sorry. I'm
absolutely rotten at meeting new people. I always have been. I never
seem to have any conversation. They always think I'm just a fool--which,
as a matter of fact, I always feel in a crowd. But apart from that.
You've no idea how much I enjoy the bike ride. I wouldn't give it up for
anything. I've tried to explain to you sometimes. It gets me away from
things, and I like getting away from things. I feel--it's hard to
explain a stupid thing like this--I feel as if I were lifted out of
things and able to look at things from a sort of other-world point of
view. It's jolly. Don't you remember I suggested to you, oh, years ago,
when we were first--when we first came here, suggested you might ride in
part of the way with me of a morning, and told you the idea of the
thing? You didn't quite understand it--"

She pushed back her chair. "I don't understand it now," she said.

His eyes had been shining as they shone when he was interested or eager.
He threw himself back in his seat. "Oh, well!"

She got up. She said in a very loud, very thin and edged voice, the
little constrictions on either side of her nose extraordinarily deep:

"I never can understand any of your ideas, except that no one else ever
seems to have them. Except your Fargus friends perhaps. I should keep
them for them if I were you. Anyway, all I wanted to say I've said. All
I wanted to say was that, if you persist in riding home in the dark, I
really cannot allow Rebecca to go out and bring in your bicycle. After
this leg of hers is over, if it ever is over, I really cannot allow it
any more. That's all I wanted to say."

She left the room.

He began to fumble with extraordinary intensity in the pocket of his
dinner jacket for his cigarette case. He could feel it, but his fingers
seemed all thumbs. He got it out and it slipped through his fingers on
to the table. His hands were shaking.

CHAPTER VI

I

A draper occupied the premises opposite Fortune, East and Sabre's. On
the following afternoon, just before five o'clock, Sabre saw Nona alight
from her car and go into the draper's. He put on his hat and coat and
descended into the street. As he crossed the road she came out.

"Hullo, Marko!"

"Hullo. Well, there's evidently one woman in the world who can get out
of a draper's in under an hour. You haven't been in a minute."

"Did you se