"Well, how are you?" he asked perfunctorily. "Have some cocoa. I'll wash another cup." "No, thanks. You carry on with your breakfast. I've just been round to see Esdaile. Is he away?" "Went off on Tuesday," Rooke replied. "Where, to Yorkshire?" "Yes. Took that fellow with him--you know--the flying fellow." "But why aren't you at the studio?" He answered evasively. "Oh--I chucked that idea." "But listen to me. You were to have got married, weren't you?" "Oh--Audrey chucked that," he replied, pushing his cup away. "Chucked it altogether, do you mean?" "Looks like it," he grunted. "Let's talk about something else." But, looking round the untidy room again I wondered whether it would not be better for him to talk about precisely that. Even an active smart was preferable to sloth and helplessness of that kind, and there is something very lovable about Monty at his best. "No, no," I said. "Much better get it off your chest. And look here, my friend, you haven't shaved this morning. That sort of thing doesn't help. Talk about something else? No, let's talk about this. Where is Mrs. Cunningham?" "I think Buxton this week. Haven't looked at the _Era_. She's on tour if you must know." "But why? Why are things--like this? Surely there's a reason?" "Oh, she said she just couldn't stick it," he answered with an off-handed but tremulous little laugh. "Stick what?" "Everything." I knew what he meant by "everything." He meant, simply, this confounded Case. Now, it appeared, it had power to break off an engagement and to bring Rooke down to dirty table-cloths, unmade beds and marmalade out of the grocer's pot. "Look here, Monty," I began, touching his sleeve, "we've been friends for quite a number of years now----" "Oh, don't," he interrupted me petulantly. "Leave a fellow alone." "No, I'm not going to leave you alone like this. I want you to tell me why you left the studio, and why Mrs. Cunningham's gone off on tour, and a number of other things." Well, it took time, but bit by bit he yielded. In sullen, resentful sentences he began to talk. "What do I mean by everything?" he said. "Well, I mean everything. Nothing's gone right. Nothing at all. Everybody's fed up to the back teeth, Esdaile too. And all that stupid business last week just about put the tin hat on it." "Do you mean that photograph in the papers?" "Yes, and those idiotic crowds, and all their senseless talk. Who wants a streetful of fools gaping at his windows for two or three days on end like that? Then they started pulling his leg at the Club. So he just waited till this chap Smith was fit to be moved and then cleared out. I don't blame him." "Yes, I can understand Esdaile's being annoyed; but that's over now, and I don't quite see why you should leave and come back here."