But he was so tired; he couldn’t think connectedly. They all got mixed up, Morelli and Mrs. Lester, Tony and his wife. He stood, trying with trembling fingers to fasten his collar. The damned stud! how it twisted about! When he had got its silly head one way and was slipping the collar over it, then suddenly it slipped round the other way and left his fingers aching. Oh! he supposed he must see her. After all, it was better to have it out now and settle it, settle it once and for ever. These women—beastly nuisance. Damn the stud! He had considered the question of telling the family and had decided to leave it until the morning. He was much too tired to face them all now with their questions and anger and expostulation. Oh! he’d had enough of that, poor man! Besides, there wouldn’t be any anxiety until the morning. Tony was so often late, and although Sir Richard would probably fume and scold at his cutting dinner again, still, he’d done it so often. No, Lady Gale was really the question. If she worried, if she were going to spend an anxious night thinking about it, then he ought to go and tell her at once. But she probably had a pretty good idea about the way things had gone. She would not be any more anxious now than she had been during all these last weeks, and he really felt, just now, physically incapable of telling her. No, he wouldn’t see any of them yet. He would go up to the room of the minstrels and think what he was to do. He always seemed to be able to think better up there. But Mrs. Lester! What was he to do about her? He felt now simply antagonism. He hated her, the very thought of her! What was he doing with that kind of thing? Why couldn’t he have left her alone? A kind of fury seized him at the thought of her! He shook his fist at the ceiling and scowled at the looking-glass; then he went wearily to the room. But it was dark, and he was frightened now by the dark. He stood on the threshold scarcely daring to enter. Then with trembling fingers he felt for the matches and lit the two candles. But even then the light that they cast was so uncertain, they left so many corners dark, and then there were such strange grey lights under the gallery that he wasn’t at all happy. Lord! what a state his nerves were in! He was afraid lest he should go to sleep, and then anything might happen. He faced the grey square of the window with shrinking eyes; it was through there that the green lizards . . . He would have liked to have crossed the room to prevent the window from rattling if he’d had the courage, but the sound of his steps on the floor frightened him. He remembered his early enthusiasm about the room. Well, that was a long, long time ago. Not long in hours, he knew, but in experience! It was another lifetime!