'You look hot,' said Margaret-Juliet, with cruel distinctness, just as

he was trying to throw the most intense pathos into the words, ''tis

not the lark, it is the nightingale!' Perhaps dreaming nonsense is also a subject for the inquiries of

psychology. At the moment the poor man's imaginary sufferings were

positively frightful, and he awoke with a gasp. He had always secretly

dreaded growing fat, he had always felt a horror of anything like

singing or speaking in public, and the only thing in the world he

really feared was the possibility of being ridiculous in Margaret's

eyes. Of course the ingenious demon of his dreams found a way of

applying all these three torments at once, and it was like being saved

from sudden death to wake up in the dark and smell the stale smoke of

the pipe he had enjoyed before putting out his light.

Then he fell asleep again and did not awake till morning, being

naturally a very good sleeper. It was raining when he got up, and he

looked out disconsolately upon the dull street. It seemed to him that

if it was going to rain in Paris he might as well go back to London,

where he had plenty to do, and he began to consider which train he

should take, revolving the advantages and disadvantages of reaching

London early in the evening or late at night. He knew the different

time-tables by heart.

But it stopped raining while he was dressing, and the sun came out, and

a bird began to sing somewhere at a window high above the street, and

it was suddenly spring again. It was a great thing to be alone in

spring. If he went back to London he must see people he knew, and dine

with people he hardly knew at all, and be asked out by others whom he

had not even met, because he was the distinguished critic, flattered

and feared and asked to dinner by everybody who had a seventh cousin in

danger of literary judgment. He belonged to the flock of dramatic lions

and must herd with them, eat with them and roar with them, for the

greater glory of London society and his native country generally. Under

ordinary circumstances such an existence was bearable and at times

delightful, but just now he wanted to roar in the wilderness and assert

his leonine right of roaming in desolate places not less than two

geographical degrees east of Pall Mall.

He went out at last and strolled towards the bridge, and across it and

much farther, but not aimlessly, for though he did not always take the

shortest way, he kept mainly in the same direction till he came to the

Avenue Hoche.




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