It is dusk. It is October. There is no one near them. He begins to speak. His eyes tell her what he can scarcely say: her eyes and that which tides in deepest colour across her face inform him what her answer is. He takes her in his arms. He tells her: "I love you, darling. Brida, I love you." She whispers: "Phil!" He goes home exalted in his every pulse by what he has drunk from her lips: plumed, armed, caparisoned by that ethereal draught for any marvels, challenging the future to bring out its costliest, mightiest, bravest, best--he'd have it, he'd wrest it for his sweet, his darling! He goes home--and there is Alice waiting for him. Can't he, oh, can't he come down to Surbiton to-night, Friday, instead of waiting till to-morrow? She simply cannot bear it down there without him. It's all right when he is there. When she's alone with her mother, her mother goes on and on and on about the expenses, and about the children, and seems to throw the blame on Bill, and she answers back, and her father joins in, and there they are--at it! There's been a worse scene than ever to-day. She can't face meeting them at supper without Phil. "Phil, you'll come, won't you?" Here is Young Wriford twisting his hands and twisting his brows, as often in later years he comes to twist them. He had planned to spend all to-morrow and Sunday with Brida--not go to Surbiton at all this week-end. Now he must go to-night. Why? Why on earth should this kind of thing be put on him? He tries to explain to Alice that he cannot come--either to-day or to-morrow. She cries. He lets her cry and lets her go--doing his best to make her think him not wilfully unkind. Here he is left alone in torment of self-reproach and of anger at the position he is placed in. Here he is with the self-reproach mastering him, and writing excuses to Brida, and hurrying to catch a train that will get him down to Surbiton in time for supper. Here is Dragon Mrs. Filmer greeting him with: "Well, this is unexpected! You couldn't of course have sent a line saying you were coming to-night instead of to-morrow! Oh, no, I mustn't expect that! My convenience goes for nothing in my own house nowadays. I call it rather hard on me." Here is Mr. Filmer, with his face exactly like a sheep, who replies at supper when Young Wriford lets out that he has been to a theatre-gallery during the week: "Well, I must say some people are very lucky to be able to afford such things. I'm afraid they don't come our way. We have a good many mouths to feed in this household, haven't we, Alice, h'm, ha?" Here is Young Wriford in bed, pitying himself, reproaching himself, thinking of Brida, thinking of the Filmers, thinking of old Bill, thinking of Alice, thinking of his work ... pitying himself; hating himself for doing it; in a tangle; in a torment.... VI