Spanton does not admit that he has been in any way to blame about Nancy. He is still the same ardent futurist, unshaken in anything but woman's stability (in which, however, of course; he never had much belief); yet, none the less, when we were on a motor bus the other day, bowling down the Hampstead Road like an avalanche, I saw a wistful expression come into his face as he watched two lovers on the seat in front of us. They were quite common, from the superior point of view, he a shop assistant or clerk and she a clerk or shop assistant, and her engagement ring was only a pearl surrounded by five little turquoises; but they were as near as possible to each other, and one happiness did for both, and the only words I caught were his, in a lull in the racket made by our terrible vehicle, when he finished a sentence by saying, "And of course I shall _have_ to obey you _then_." A sickening sentiment for Spanton to hear, yet none the less, although a spasm crossed his face, it did not kill the wistful look. What I am now wondering is whether he has learnt anything from what has happened. Because, of course, many of us learn so badly, and Spanton is so lacking in humility, which is the seed-of-learning's most fruitful soil. That Nancy has made no mistake, I feel convinced; nor will any bitterness be hers. There she is fortunate. One of the hardest things in life, and for women, is that it is only by failing to make one woman happy that many a man acquires the experience which is to serve him in succeeding with another. CHAPTER XXVII IN WHICH A COMPANY OF INTELLIGENT AND FOR THE MOST PART CONCEITED MEN MEET MORE THAN THEIR MATCH I still tingle with mortification over an experience at Dabney's last evening, the only satisfaction being that others tingle with me. We were talking of the supernatural--that unprofitable but endlessly alluring theme--and most of us had cited an instance, without, however, producing much effect. Among the strangers to me was a little man with an anxious white face, whom Rudson-Wayte had brought, and he watched each speaker with the closest attention, but said nothing. Then Dabney, wishing to include him in the talk, turned to him and asked if he had no experience to relate, no story that contained an inexplicable element. He thought a moment. "Well," he said, "not a story in the ordinary sense of the word: nothing, that is, from hearsay, like most of your examples. Truth, I always hold, is not only vastly stranger than fiction, but also vastly more interesting. I could tell you an occurrence which happened to me personally, and which oddly enough completed itself only this afternoon." We begged him to begin.