We have, so far that night, seen Gerald Haveleur March, by the way. We have seen his evening paper; but we have not read it. (Nor had Hilary read his _Evening Standard_. He always “glanced at it,” he excused himself later on, as he was going to bed. As I did, if ever.) We have, also by the way, noted the presence in London of the car of the flying stork. We have dined, and had some brandy. We have talked of purity, and discovered an amiable dissonance in our views thereon. We would then, at about eleven o’clock, have by ordinary gone towards bed, for after dining with Hilary one somehow always went straightway to bed. That was why, Guy said cruelly, one dined with Hilary. The “hm’s” seemed to soothe the way thither. But that evening, however it came about, I did not feel that I would like to go straightway to bed. One has, I suppose, moods. But I can’t account plausibly for the fact that Hilary came with me to the Loyalty. Hilary did not go to night-clubs. His moods took a more exclusive course. He ignored night-clubs, and thought he was ignoring the whole of folly. Not so superior, I! Wherefore it passed that I discovered my mood to Hilary as we stood in the hall of his house, for Hilary was accompanying me to the door. Ross, red and silent and amiable, stood somewhere about with my hat. Where we stood, just without the door, the unusually warm June night smiled kindly on us. There is not much sky in London, but that little smiled on us with a faint load of stars, and somewhere behind the roofs there might be hanging a moon. There might? But there was such a pretty tilted silver boat among the chimneys of Curzon House! From the small table in the hall Hilary had absently taken up the evening-paper, which was folded in that way which tells you in the Stop-Press News that Surrey has scored 263 for eight wickets. He held it in his hand with that air of one who has nothing left to do but read an evening-paper. Grey and thoughtful and kind, he stood there in the doorway of his tall sombre house, looking up at the faint stars on the ceiling of Chesterfield Street: his was just that contained air of loneliness that unmarried schoolmasters wear during their holidays. “Hm,” he said. “Nice night....” “Hilary, why don’t you come with me? It won’t probably be amusing, but we can always come away....” “Dancing,” he frowned. Hilary likes dancing, really. Only, not being exactly supreme among dancers, he never can understand how good dancers may like dancing so much that they will dance whenever they can. If Hilary had been a writer he would have put very witty and biting bits about dancing into his books. All writers have clumsy feet.