Slowly, an old man, he turns and walks back westward to Piccadilly. He could not, after such a sight, endure the superficial oratory, the unreal antagonism of the House. He must be alone on such an evening with his thoughts. Backwards and forwards he paces up and down his long, book-lined study. Was it she, he wonders. It was for only the merest fraction of a second that the glare of the lamp had revealed the dark interior. And there must be so many girls with flaxen hair and pale cornflower blue eyes. Not like hers, though, not quite like hers: never anywhere had he seen such eyes, such hair. And he had learnt during the last year to know by heart every changing light and shadow of those loved features. Surely he could not make a mistake about her now. But even if it were she, what then? What was a kiss after all? To some girls it meant everything. There were some girls whose lips once yielded would be ready to surrender all. There were others to whom a kiss was no more than the casual brushing of a hand; who kissed out of kindliness, out of affection. And surely she would be one of them, she who was kissed every night before a thousand people, with the limelight on her upturned face, by a man for whom she had on the whole almost a physical dislike. What could kisses mean to her? And yet how shy she had been when he had first kissed her, nearly two years ago. She had trembled and had sat on the edge of the sofa in that private room, her fingers plucking at her skirt, afraid to look at him. It had passed swiftly enough, that nervousness. But she had not been then the girl to exchange kisses lightly with any man. And if she had become so since, the change had not been of his making. The heavy alabaster clock on the mantelpiece strikes one. She should be back by now. They have agreed so often that if an actress is to be fresh for her work next day, she cannot dance away her energy, night after night, till morning. They have talked so often of the wisdom of cutting one’s supper parties short. “A couple of hours, darling, that’s all one needs.” And there is a matinée next day. Surely she will be home by now. He walks across to his desk and lifts the receiver of the telephone. “Hammerton 5769,” he calls. The operator repeats the number. He sits there, the receiver against his ear, waiting, waiting for the sound of the quick, breathless voice that will put all his anxieties to sleep. But it does not come. Perhaps she is asleep. It was selfish of him to ring her up. She was tired and has returned straight to the flat after the theatre. The vision in the taxi was the trick of a disordered fancy. He will have woken her up. She will be angry with him. He will send her some flowers in the morning and she will forgive him. But no answer comes. And after a long delay a sleepy, masculine voice informs him that he can “get no answer, sir.” But he is sure he has the right number? “Yes, sir, Hammerton 5769.”