It was Clara who discovered the shop in her wanderings through the West End, which she desired to know even to its remotest crannies, and its oddity seized her imagination when she discovered that for all its fierceness it was kept by a gentle little old Scotsman, who most ferociously desired the destruction of society, but most gently helped all who needed help and most wholly sympathised with all, and they were many, who turned to him for sympathy.... The frequenters of his shop were poor, mostly long-haired eaters of nuts, and drinkers of ideas. There were young men who hovered in the background of his shop arguing, chatting, filling in the time they had to spend away from their lodgings in the frequent intervals between their attempts to do work for which their convictions made them unfitted. They believed, as he did, in the nobility of work, but could find none that was not ignoble. It was his boast that he had no book in his shop in which he did not believe. The beautiful and elegant young lady who walked into his shop one day astonished and delighted him with her radiance. She was the kind of accident that does not often happen to a humble Anarchist bookseller. When she came again and again, he warmed to her, and recommended books, and gave her Prince Kropotkin's _Memoirs_ as a present, at least he gave her the second volume, for he could not find the first.... He always hotly denied that books were stolen from his open shop, but admitted that they were sometimes 'borrowed' by his young friends. The story of Kropotkin's escape from the fortress moved Clara deeply, and she read it to Verschoyle in her rooms. 'And that man is still alive,' she said, 'here in England, where we go round and round hunting fame and money.... He was like you, Verschoyle, in just such a position as you, but he found it intolerable and went to prison.' 'Ah! but that was in Russia, where it is easy to go to prison. If I tried and tried they wouldn't send me. I'm too rich. They wouldn't do it. If I became an Anarchist, they would just laugh because they don't believe that society can ever be upset.' 'I'm quite sure I didn't go into that shop for nothing. Something is going to happen to me,' said Clara. 'I think quite enough has happened to you. Don't you? ... What a restless little creature you are! Here you are with everything at your feet, the greatest artist, the richest bachelor in London at your disposal, and you want something to happen to you.' 'I don't want it. I say that I feel it must come. 'You're before your time, my dear. That's what is the matter with you. Women aren't independent yet. They are still clinging to men. That is what I cannot stand about them. I should hate to have a woman clinging to my money. Still more should I hate to have one clinging to myself.' 'But you ought to marry. You would be happier.' He shook his head and smiled,-- 'You have made that impossible, Clara.' 'I?'