Kreisler had his eyes trained across the room. The other man, too, was turned slightly in that direction, although his eyes followed the tapping of his boot against the ironwork of the table, and he only looked up occasionally. Kreisler turned round, stared at Tarr without at once taking in who it was; then, as though saying to himself, “It’s only Bertha’s Englishman,” he took up his former wilful and patient attitude, his eyes fixed. Tarr had grinned a little as Kreisler turned his way, rescued from his solemnity. There was just a perceptible twist in the German’s neck and shade of expression that would have said “Ah, there you are? Well, be quiet, we’re having some fun. Just you wait!” But Tarr was so busy with his own feelings that he didn’t understand this message. He wondered if he had been seen by Kreisler in the distance, and if this reception had been concerted between him and his friend. If so, why? Sitting, as he was, with his back to the room, he stared at his neighbour. His late boon companion distinctly was waiting, with absurd patience, for something. The poise of his head, the set of his yellow Prussian jaw, were truculent, although otherwise he was peaceful and attentive. His collar looked _new_ rather than clean. His necktie was one not familiar to Tarr. Boots shone impassibly under the table. Tarr screwed his chair sideways, and faced the room. It was full of people—very athletically dressed American men, all the varieties of the provincial in American women, powdering their noses and ogling Turks, or sitting, the younger ones, with blameless interest and fine complexions. And there were _plenty_ of Turks, Mexicans, Russians and other “types” for the American ladies! In the wide passage-way into the further rooms sat the orchestra, playing the “Moonlight Sonata,” Dvorak and the “Machiche.” In the middle of the room, at Tarr’s back, he now saw a group of eight or ten young men whom he had seen occasionally in the Café Berne. They looked rather German, but smoother and more vivacious. Poles or Austrians, then? Two or three of them appeared to be amusing themselves at his expense. Had they noticed the little drama that he was conducting at his table? Were they friends of Kreisler’s, too?—He was incapable of working anything out. He flushed and felt far more like beginning on them than on his complicated idiot of a neighbour, who had become a cold task. This genuine feeling illuminated for him the tired frigidity of his present employment. He had moved his chair a little to the right, towards the group at his back, and more in front of Kreisler, so that he could look into his face. On turning back now, and comparing the directions of the various pairs of eyes engaged, he at length concluded that he was without the sphere of interest; _just_ without it.