He went back to his room with paper and pencil, and began to sketch. He was astonished to find that his hand, once as steady as the table itself, shook very slightly but perceptibly. The drink last night, or shell-shock? He persisted with his sketch, but the whole thing went wrong. He got tired of blocking lines in, and irritatedly rubbing them out. And yet that scene existed so vividly in his memory and he could see exactly how it could be formalized into an effective pattern. But his hand and brain failed him—he had even forgotten how to draw rapidly and accurately. He dropped the pencil and rubber on the half-erased sketch and went back to Elizabeth’s room. She was still out. The room was very quiet and sunny. The old orange-striped curtains had gone and were replaced by long ample curtains of thick green serge, to comply with the regulations about lights. There were summer flowers in the large blue bowl, and fruit on the beautiful Spanish plate. He remembered how the wasp had come through the window like a tiny Fokker plane, almost exactly three years ago. To his surprise he felt a lump in his throat and tears coming to his eyes. A church clock outside chimed three quarters. He looked at his wrist watch—a quarter to one. Better go somewhere and have lunch. He dropped into the first Lyons Restaurant he came to. The waitress asked if he would like cold corned beef—thanks, he’d had enough bully beef for the time being. After lunch, he rang up Fanny’s flat, but got no reply. He walked in her direction, strolling, to give her time to return home. She was not in. He scribbled a note, asking her to meet him as soon as she could, and then took a bus back to Chelsea, lay down on his bed and fell asleep. Elizabeth came into the room about six and tip-toed out. At seven she woke him. He started up, fully awake at once, mechanically grabbing for his rifle. “What’s up?” Elizabeth was startled by this sudden leap awake, and he had unconsciously jostled her roughly as she bent over him. “I’m so sorry. How you started! I didn’t mean to _frighten_ you.” “Oh, it’s all right. I wasn’t frightened—used to jumping up in a hurry, you know. What time is it?” “Seven.” “Good Lord, I wonder what made me sleep that long!” “I came to know if you’d dine with me and Reggie to-night.” “Is he coming here afterwards?” “Of course not.” “I think I’ll have dinner with Fanny.” “All right, just as you please.” “Can I have the other key to the flat?” Elizabeth lied: “I’m afraid it’s lost. But I’ll leave the door unlocked as I did to-day.” “All right. Thanks.” “Au revoir.” “Au revoir.” * * * * * Winterbourne washed, and worked desperately hard with a nail brush to get out the dirt deeply and apparently ineradicably engrained in his roughened hands. He got a little more off, but his fingers were still striated with lines of dirt which made them look coarse and horrible. He rang Fanny up from a call-box.