One evening Michael went out about nine o’clock to post a letter and, finding the evening velvety and calm, strolled on through the enticing streets of twilight. The violet shadows in which the white caps and aprons of gossiping maids took on a moth-like immaterial beauty, the gliding, enraptured lovers, the scent of freshly watered flower-boxes, the stars winking between the chimney-pots, and all the drowsy alertness of a fine London dusk drew him on to turn each new corner as it arrived, until he saw the sky stained with dull gold from the reflection of the lively crater of the Earl’s Court Exhibition, and heard over the vague intervening noises music that was sometimes clearly melodious, sometimes a mere confusion of spasmodic sound. Michael suddenly thought he would like to spend his evening at the Exhibition, and wondered to himself why he had never thought of going there casually like this, why always he had considered it necessary to devote a hot afternoon and flurried evening to its exploitation. By the entrance he met a fellow-Jacobean, one Drake, whose accentuated mannishness, however disagreeable in the proximity of the school, might be valuable at the Exhibition. Michael therefore accepted his boisterous greeting pleasantly enough, and they passed through the turnstiles together. “I’ll introduce you to a smart girl, if you like,” Drake offered, as they paused undecided between the attractions of two portions of the Exhibition. “She sells Turkish Delight by the Cave of the Four Winds. Very O.T., my boy,” Drake went on. “Do you mean——” Michael began. “What? Rather,” said Drake. “I’ve been home to her place.” “No joking?” Michael asked. “Yes,” affirmed Drake with a triumphant inhalation of sibilant breath. “Rather lucky, wasn’t it?” Michael asked. “I mean to say, it was rather lucky to meet her.” “She might take you home,” suggested Drake, examining Michael critically. “But I mightn’t like her,” Michael expostulated. “Good Lord,” exclaimed Drake, struck by a point of view that was obviously dismaying in its novelty, “you don’t mean to say you’d bother about that, if you could?” “Well, I rather think I should,” Michael admitted. “I think I’d want to be in love.” “You are an extraordinary chap,” said Drake. “Now if I were dead nuts on a girl, the last thing I’d think of would be that.”