In the room it began to grow dark; colours vanished, forms ran together. The easel and Myra’s portrait were now a single black silhouette against the window. Near and far were fused, become one and continuous in the darkness, became a part of the darkness. Outside the window the pale twilight grew more sombre. The children shouted shrilly, playing their games under the green gas lamps. The mirthless, ferocious laughter of young girls mocked and invited. Lypiatt stretched out his hand and fingered the pistol. Down below, at his door, he heard a sharp knocking. He lifted his head and listened, caught the sound of two voices, a man’s and a woman’s. Myra’s voice he recognized at once; the other, he supposed, was Gumbril’s. “Hideous to think that people actually live in places like this,” Gumbril was saying. “Look at those children. It ought to be punishable by law to produce children in this street.” “They always take me for the Pied Piper,” said Mrs. Viveash. Lypiatt got up and crept to the window. He could hear all they said. “I wonder if Lypiatt’s in. I don’t see any sign of a light.” “But he has heavy curtains,” said Mrs. Viveash, “and I know for a fact that he always composes his poetry in the dark. He may be composing poetry.” Gumbril laughed. “Knock again,” said Mrs. Viveash. “Poets are always absorbed, you know. And Casimir’s always the poet.” “_Il Poeta_—capital P. Like d’Annunzio in the Italian papers,” said Gumbril. “Did you know that d’Annunzio has books printed on mackintosh for his bath?” He rapped again at the door. “I saw it in the _Corriere della Sera_ the other day at the club. He reads the _Little Flowers of St. Francis_ by preference in his bath. And he has a fountain pen with waterproof ink in the soap-dish, so that he can add a few Fioretti of his own whenever he feels like it. We might suggest that to Casimir.” Lypiatt stood with folded arms by the window, listening. How lightly they threw his life, his heart, from hand to hand, as though it were a ball and they were playing a game! He thought suddenly of all the times he had spoken lightly and maliciously of other people. His own person had always seemed, on those occasions, sacred. One knew in theory very well that others spoke of one contemptuously—as one spoke of them. In practice—it was hard to believe. “Poor Casimir!” said Mrs. Viveash. “I’m afraid his show was a failure.” “I know it was,” said Gumbril. “Complete and absolute. I told my tame capitalist that he ought to employ Lypiatt for our advertisements. He’d be excellent for those. And it would mean some genuine money in his pocket.” “But the worst of it is,” said Mrs. Viveash, “that he’ll only feel insulted by the suggestion.” She looked up at the window. “I don’t know why,” she went on, “this house looks most horribly dead. I hope nothing’s happened to poor Casimir. I have a most disagreeable feeling that it may have.” “Ah, this famous feminine intuition,” laughed Gumbril. He knocked again.