stories about her, even before she was married, and
then we heard she was divorced. She came up to London and earned her own
living by playing the piano until she married again. I won't tell you
her name, but she is very well known, and nobody has ever seen her show
the slightest signs of being ashamed. If there is one woman like that
there may be dozens, and I sometimes think we waste----"

Gregory said dryly:

"I have heard you say that before."

Mrs. Shortman bit her lips.

"I don't think," she said, "that I grudge my efforts or my time."

Gregory went quickly up, and took her hand.

"I know that--oh, I know that," he said with feeling.

The sound of Miss Mallow furiously typing rose suddenly from the corner.
Gregory removed his hat from the peg on which it hung.

"I must go now," he said. "Good-night."

Without warning, as is the way with hearts, his heart had begun to
bleed, and he felt that he must be in the open air. He took no omnibus
or cab, but strode along with all his might, trying to think, trying to
understand. But he could only feel-confused and battered feelings, with
now and then odd throbs of pleasure of which he was ashamed. Whether
he knew it or not, he was making his way to Chelsea, for though a man's
eyes may be fixed on the stars, his feet cannot take him there, and
Chelsea seemed to them the best alternative. He was not alone upon this
journey, for many another man was going there, and many a man had been
and was coming now away, and the streets were the one long streaming
crowd of the summer afternoon. And the men he met looked at Gregory, and
Gregory looked at them, and neither saw the other, for so it is written
of men, lest they pay attention to cares that are not their own. The sun
that scorched his face fell on their backs, the breeze that cooled his
back blew on their cheeks. For the careless world, too, was on its way,
along the pavement of the universe, one of millions going to Chelsea,
meeting millions coming away....

"Mrs. Bellew at home?"

He went into a room fifteen feet square and perhaps ten high, with
a sulky canary in a small gilt cage, an upright piano with an open
operatic score, a sofa with piled-up cushions, and on it a woman with a
flushed and sullen face, whose elbows were resting on her knees, whose
chin was resting on her hand, whose gaze was fixed on nothing. It was a
room of that size, with all these things, but Gregory took into it with
him some thing th