"Goin', Mr. Brandon? Like to settle now or leave it to another day?" "What's that?" said Falk, stopping as though some one had touched him on the shoulder. He seemed to see the large smiling man suddenly in front of him outlined against a shifting wall of mist. "Payin' now or leavin' it? Please yourself, Mr. Brandon." "Oh--paying!" He fumbled in his pocket, produced half-a-crown, gave it to Hogg without looking at him and went out. Davray followed, slouching through the room and passage with the conceited over-careful walk of a man a little tipsy. Outside, as they went down the street still obscured with the wet mist, Davray poured out a flow of words to which he seemed to want no answer. "I hope you didn't mind my speaking to you like that--a bit unceremonious. But to tell you the truth I'm lonely sometimes. Also, if you want to know the whole truth and nothing but the truth, I'm a bit tipsy too. Generally am. This air makes one feel queer after that stinking hole, doesn't it? If you can call this air. I've seen you there a lot lately and often thought I'd like to talk to you. You're the only decent- looking fellow in the whole of this town, if you'll forgive my saying so. Isn't it a bloody hole? But of course you think so too. I can see it in your face. I suppose you go to that pub after that girl. I saw you talking to her. Well, each man to his taste. I'd never interfere with any man's pleasure. I loathe women myself, always have. They never appealed to me a little bit. In Paris the men used to wonder what I was after. I was after Ambition in those days. Funny thing, but I thought I was going to be a great painter once. Queer what one can trick oneself into believing--so I might have been if I hadn't come to this beastly town. Hope I'm not boring you...." He stopped as though he had suddenly realised that his companion had not said a word. They were pushing now up the hill into the market-place and the mist was now so thick that they could scarcely see one another's face. Falk was thinking. "To-morrow evening.... What do I want? What's going to happen? What do I want?" The silence made him conscious of his companion. "What do you say?" he asked. "Hope I'm not boring you." "No, that's all right. Where are we?" "Just coming into the market." "Oh, yes." "If I talk a lot it's because I haven't had any one to talk to for weeks. Not that I want to talk to any one. I despise the lot of them. Conceited set of ignorant parrots.... Whole place run by women and what can you expect? You're not staying here, I suppose. I heard you'd had enough of Oxford and I don't wonder. No place for a man, beautiful enough but spoilt by the people. _Damn_ people--always coming along and spoiling places. Now there's the Cathedral, most wonderful thing in England, but does any one know it? Not a bit of it. You'd think they fancied that the Cathedral _owes_ them something--about as much sense of beauty as a cockroach."