breath in—or by the sea, of course—and say, 'Thank God that I'm alive!'"

"And thank God you're alone?" his friend enquired. He looked across at him, no longer by now as at a patient, but as he might have at a curious specimen inside a labelled bottle.

Hubert was quite pleased to have this opportunity for self-analysis thrust on him. He liked to be thought peculiar but wished to be sincere. He reflected a little, then slowly blew out a funnel of smoke with energy behind it.

"Yes," he said, "and thank God I'm alone."

CHAPTER II

"WHY MEN MARRY"

Hubert shut the door after his visitor with no deep feeling of regret. He managed to refrain from slamming it.

He was angry still.

Men are peculiar about their troubles. Woman, popularly thought to be a sieve with secrets, will crush a worry down, grapple silently and fight with it, nor ever let her very nearest know that it is there. Perhaps heroic centuries of motherhood have taught her to endure her own pain with a smile, where she can scarce bear to conceal another's folly? The man, in any case, is different. Tell him what Mrs. Tomkins stupidly said about the vicar: he will not breathe it to a living soul. Quite possibly he will not even listen to the end.... But let him have some small upset, some crisis where decision must be made, not a big choice—nothing like those he makes off-hand each day up in his city office—and you shall see him stripped of his pretence to all reserve or strength. Long time, like Homeric heroes, he sits tossing thought hither and thither. Nothing emerges from this exercise: it is a mere convention. He must think a little: people always do; but he knows well enough that not this way lies decision. He takes other steps. If he is a man of few friends, he will risk everything upon a coin's fall. "Heads I do, and tails I don't," he mutters weakly, groping in his pocket. Up spins the penny. Heads it is! "Heads I do," he murmurs once again; and adds, pathetically firm, "But all the same, I don't think I will." He has been helped to his decision.

If he has friends, he will use one of them in place of the penny. Every man, almost, has one trusted friend whose advice he does not take in all moments of perplexity.

Kenneth Boyd stood, so to speak, as Hubert's penny. He always sat and listened stolidly to his friend's trouble: then he answered "Heads" or "Tails," as it seemed best to him; went back, braced by the contrast, to his Hampstead home; and left Hubert to decide whether or no he would take the spin as final.

In this case, as he sat down, Hubert said to himself with vehemence, poking the fire fiercely, that he would not. He had asked Kenneth whether it would be mean to turn Ruth out, as she herself suggested—and he had at once embarked on a long rigmarole about dear wives, winter sunsets, kiddies, teapots, and all sorts of things....

With a last jab at the fire he dismissed the interview just over from his mind and settled down to think. He never ought to have asked that monomaniac along. He might have guessed what he would say.

Ruth was a nuisance, frankly; she jarred upon him constantly: their life was one long quarrel nowadays; but—how would solitude affect his work?

That was the big question.

To Hubert Brett his work was life, and nothing much else counted. He was a man who valued success less for its achievement than for its reward. He liked to be pointed out as one who wrote (he often was, in little country places); he enjoyed meeting men and women whose names were famous far and wide; he loved press-cuttings, revelled in his photograph when reproduced, and was almost physically upset when he received a real old-fashioned, slashing review. To anything of this sort he always replied, quoting the opinions of some other papers, and "relying on the editor's sense of justice to give his letter publicity." Papers, in fact, that liked neither his novels nor his letters, had ceased to notice the first-named, hoping to avoid the last: and he was glad of this decision. Letters from unknown readers were shown to all his friends, who also had the privilege of reading the longest reviews, left out upon his mantel-piece; though when they took them up he would always protest, "Oh, that'll bore you: it's only a few stray press-cuttings." He liked at dinner-parties to sit next women who had read his books (the dear, kind, tactful sex!), and asked him how he wrote. He had, in fact, published his first book under a pseudonym (his father, as a clergyman, naturally objecting to the real name being used), but found that no one recognised him as the author under his own different name. He therefore, on his father's death, had paid some pounds and taken the name Brett permanently as his own for ordinary use. His sister, who was like most women in being petulant as to trifles but mild about the things that matter, had submitted from being Ruth Brettesley to become mere Ruth Brett. Now, when he dined out, Hubert often found that women next him would ask if he was "the author." It never had occurred to him, of course, that they were coached by an ideal hostess.

It may be well imagined, then, that he now hesitated before taking any step that might affect his very methodical arrangements about writing. His sister, once thrown over (he told himself), would never return. She would marry or something. Women were like cats: they always did. She would not stray about uncomfortably until he wanted her again. No; she would make a home: and he, as the years went on, would find himself alone....

He had lit a pipe, and drew at it mechanically, but he was far too rapt to taste it. Kenneth Boyd's words on that one point had certainly gone home. His eyes fixed on a glowing cavern of red embers, he saw unroll before him a grisly panorama of the days to be.

He could see himself, bereft of Ruth's care, moving to a bachelor flat where they "did for" one; happy enough perhaps, at first, in solitude, and working well—happy and working until illness came. Then he saw the change. Ruth, he admitted, had been quite splendid—like her old self—when he had been ill. That was when you wanted a woman about.... Then, as Kenneth had said, he would grow older. He could see himself climbing, more and more shakily each year, the long flight to his flat; too settled far by now to move even to a lower floor. He could see the porters and people saluting—oh, so respectfully!—till he was past, and then imitating his old, broken shuffle. He could see himself turning on with fumbling hands the light he used to switch on so gaily as he dashed in thirty years ago. He could see himself all alone at night, when it was too cold for an old man to walk about and no one wanted him; sitting there with weary eyes tight closed, thinking of the friends that he would like to see, the friends all dead or—married.... And finally he could see himself climb those stairs, so full of memories, for the last time, and stagger in for the last time to that small room where he had had such jolly parties in the years gone by, and ring and have just strength to gasp out, "I must have a doctor." Yes, and that old wreck lying there, alone but for a nurse he hated, longing for sympathy, love—even Ruth's!—yes, that too would be him. And then——

For one moment the knock on his door startled him. He was like a small child who, waked suddenly, continues a bad dream. He thought that they had come with that cheap, humble coffin which he had just seen borne up the long stairs.... He very nearly cried out, "Bring it in," not realising that he was the corpse.

"Why, it's you, Ruth!" he cried in vague annoyance.

"Of course it is," she laughed. "Who else would it be, you stupid boy? Perhaps you mean, though, you don't want me?"

"Of course I always want you, old girl." This hideous geniality, he felt, was the worst part of their whole constant warfare, recalling by an empty mockery that they