Somewhat intently Dorah examined him when he returned to Longton next morning. She dropped into the Yiddish suitable for the expression of deep feeling. "_Nu_, and where hast thou been all night? Not enough for thee to come in at twelve, at one, but thou must spend the night too! What was? Thy socialistic friends or thy wonderful Lord Backstreet? _Blegatchies_, knockabouts, thy whole brotherhood!" Philip winced. "Astronomy!" he declared sickly. "We've been examining a new ... a new comet!" "It is no good for thee, thy Astronomy!" she declared categorically. "Thou art a tablecloth! An evening indoors with a book would do thee no harm. Or thou hast forgotten how to read, say?" All that day he spent sitting in his own bedroom, a closed book before him, staring into the wall-paper beyond. Neither thoughts nor emotions stirred within him; only somewhere far down, there was a sensation as of a finger plucking at the strings of an instrument. He had arranged to see Kate once more, about a week later. There was no conflict now. Heavily he saw the clock fingers creeping towards the hour of his appointment, and listlessly he closed the door behind him. A cool, clear evening was about them as Strauss and Philip repaired towards Carnford Avenue, with a wind in their faces which, in higher levels, was chasing clouds like yachts along the channels of the sky. As Kate's door closed behind them, the passing wind seemed to Philip a hand which had endeavoured to seize his coat, but, failing, moaned and subsided in the dark threshold of the house. The sensation of something calling and something forsworn did not desert him. Now it was once more a wind attempting to circumvent the crooked chimney and sobbing away at length with a rattle in its throat. Now it was a finger of flame leaping from the fire in sudden appeal, or the sight of his own face in a looking-glass, curiously impressing upon him the fact that he had not only brought one self to this place, but many selves, some of whom had once played a seemlier part in the comedy of his days than he who now produced a distracted image in Kate's looking-glass. Conversation flowed in the room like beer from a public house tap, surfaced with froth and smelling stalely. He was talking with the others, but the lips seemed to be as much another's as his own, the lips of one over whom he had triumphed once and again, but who was triumphing now. Wilfrid Strauss seemed a mannikin manufactured from a pliant glass, though he showed his rings and crossed his legs as if his limbs were flesh and bone; transparent almost he seemed, so that the ugly design of the wall-paper was not intercepted by his contour; almost brittle, as if, were someone to handle him roughly, he would fall to the ground in fragments tinkling sharply. And when finally he withdrew with Patsy, the peculiar illusion remained with Philip that he had never in his life encountered a person whose farcical name was Wilfrid Strauss.