He stumbled up the dark stairs of his house past the door from whose crevices there stole always the scent of patchouli, past the door, higher up, whence came, creeping up his stairs the suggestion of beef and cabbage, into his own dark lodging. His sitting-room had its windows still open and its blinds still up. The lamp in the street below flung its squares of white light upon his walls; papers on his table were blowing in the evening breeze, and the noise of the town climbed up, looked in through the open windows, fell away again, climbed up again in an eternal indifferent urgency. He was aware that a man stood by the window, a wavering shadow was spread against the lighted wall. Philip stopped in the doorway. “Hullo!” he said, “who’s there?” A figure came forward. Philip, to whom all the world was, to-night, a fantasy, stared, for a moment, at the large bearded form without recognising it—wild and unreal as it seemed in the dim room. The man chuckled. “Well, young man. I’ve come to call, I got here two minutes before you.” It was Uncle Tim, Mrs. Trenchard’s brother, Timothy Faunder, Esq. “I beg your pardon,” said Philip, “the room was dark and—and—as a matter of fact I was thinking of something rather hard as I came in. Wait a minute. You shall have some light, tea and a cigarette in a moment.” “No, thanks.” Uncle Tim went back to the window again. “No tea—no cigarette. I hate the first. The second’s poisonous. I’ve got a pipe here—and don’t light up—the room’s rather pleasant like this. I expect it’s hideous when one can see it.” Philip was astonished. He had liked Tim Faunder, but had decided that Tim Faunder was indifferent to _him_—quite indifferent. For what had he come here? Sent by the family?... Yes, he liked Uncle Tim, but he did not want him or anyone else in the world there just then. He desired to sit by the open window, alone, to think about Katherine, to worship Katherine! They both sat down; Faunder on the window-seat, Philip near by. The noise of the town was distant enough to make a pleasant rumbling accompaniment to their voices. The little dark public-house opposite with its beery eye, a dim hanging lamp in the doorway, watched them. “Well, how are you?” said Faunder, “lonely?” “It was at first,” said Philip, who found it immensely difficult to tie his thoughts to his visitor. “And I hadn’t been lonely for so long—not since my first days in Moscow.” “_They_ were lonely then?” “Oh, horribly. My first two months there were the worst hours in all my life. I wanted to learn Russian, so I kept away from English people—and Russian’s difficult to pick up at first.” Faunder made one of the rumbling noises in his throat that always testified to his interest. “I like what you said—over there, at my sister’s,” he waved his hand, “about Russia—and about everything. I listened, although perhaps you didn’t think it. I hope you’re going to stick to it, young man.” “Stick to what?”