His affection for Breton was an affection sprung from his very knowledge of the man's weaknesses. He had in him that British quality of ruthless condemnation for the sinner whom he did not know and sentimental weakness for the sinner whom he did. He had seen Francis Breton through a thousand scrapes, he would see him, doubtless, through a thousand more. "We'll say no more now, old boy--You look done up--I won't worry you, but if you want me here I am and I promise not to lecture. Only you owe me some confidence, you do indeed." Breton got up and stood there, with his hand pressed to his forehead. "What you've told me," he said. "I must do something ... something ... it's all been my fault. If they should touch her----" Then, turning to Christopher, he said: "You _are_ the only friend I've got, and I know it. I do value it--only lately I've been going to bits again. If it weren't for you and little Miss Rand I swear I'd have gone altogether. You _are_ a brick, Christopher. Another day I'll come to you and tell you everything. To-night I'm simply past talking." A servant came in and gave Christopher a note. It was from Lord John saying that he was anxious about his mother and asking the doctor whether he could possibly come round and see her. Breton then said that he must go. He went, promising that he would soon come again. When he had left the house Christopher stood, perplexed, wondering whether he should have left him alone. Then he put on his hat and coat and set off for 104 Portland Place. II Breton had, indeed, no destination. He had been frightened of a whole evening with Christopher. He was frightened of everything, of everybody--above all, of himself. He found himself, with a sense of surprise, as though he were the helpless actor in some bad dream, standing in Oxford Circus. Surely it _was_ a dream. The sky, grey and lowering, was yet tinged with a smoky red. He had an overpowering sense of the minuteness of humanity, so that the crowds crossing and recrossing the Circus seemed like tiny animals crawling over the surface of a pond from which the water had been drained. His old fancy of the waterways came back to him and now he thought that Oxford Circus, often a maelstrom of tossing, whirling humanity, had run dry and lay stagnant, filled with dying life, beneath the red-tinged sky. Ever lower and lower that sky seemed to fall. Theatres, restaurants on that evening were almost deserted. People stood about in groups, saying that soon the thunder would be upon them, wondering at this weather in March, watching, with curious eyes, the sky. Breton was near madness that evening. He was near madness to this extent, that he was not certain of reality. Were those lamp-posts real? What was the meaning of those strange high buildings in whose heart there burnt so sinister a light? He watched them expecting that at any moment these would burst into flame and with a screaming rattling flare go tossing to the sky.