The purr and throb of London was quivering in stuffily through the open windows. The squeals of the “special” newsboys and the hansom-whistles of the early diners-out splashed across the blur and din, standing out against the immeasurable roar as against a silence. The heat of a London summer lay heavily over us; the undying rattle of wheels beat up to us wearily, the mid-season blare and hurry of town echoing irritatingly in their jingle and clatter as they streamed ceaselessly by. The stew and hubbub of the afternoon enclosed us as with a pall of depression. By us I mean Gerry and myself. Flung back listlessly was I in my club chair, and watching him as he strolled monotonously up and down before the great bow-window that gave upon Pall Mall. His hands were scabbarded hilt high in his pockets. His brows and the corners of his eyes were hard and wrinkled. His gaze was cast steadfastly before his toes. He did a very sentry-go of moody vexation. Each time he paused, as he turned against the light, every wrinkle and line was silhouetted mercilessly. Wretchedness covered his face as with a mask. My heart began to go out to him, bursting through its own crust of dejection. Wretched we both were, but I was seven years his senior. I began to commune with myself, seeking comfort for him out of my own hard-won store of disappointment, and trying to forget that our sorrows sat upon an even base. Suddenly he turned towards me and broke the silence that had lasted between us the greater part of the afternoon. “Well,” he said harshly, “that’s the end of most things for me.” “Possibly,” answered I, “but probably not. The future’s very spacious yet, my dear boy. I don’t say it in any patronizing spirit, but you’re only twenty-four. Try to forget the ‘might-have-been,’ and buck yourself up into imagining the ‘maybe.’ It’s not all over yet.” He grunted contemptuously, tramping off again upon his beat. A waiter who chanced in with the evening papers coughed ostentatiously, and with obvious intention towards the cloud of dust that followed hard upon his track. Gerry stared him down, and as the door closed behind him, brought himself to anchor before me again. “That’s all rot, and you know it, Jack,” he said dogmatically. “Do you think I’m going to stay here and see Vi come back another man’s wife? I’m sick of it all—sick of the work, sick of the play. Deathly sick of the utter sameness of what we call life. I’m going to chuck it, I tell you. Hausa Police, Egyptian Army, Hong Kong Regiment—something of the kind I’m going to try. There’s nothing most assuredly to keep me any longer in her Majesty’s Foot Guards. I’m dipped, and I’ve lost the one thing that might have kept me to the collar. Great Heavens! what in the name of goodness _should_ I stay for?”