Herbert opened his hand and looked reflectively into its palm before allowing himself to reply. ‘I wonder, you know; I have been wondering a good deal; simply taking the other point of view for a moment; _was_ it? I don’t mean “ghastly” exactly (like, say, smallpox, G.P.I., elephantiasis), but was it quite so complete, so radical, as in the first sheer gust of astonishment you fancied?’ Lawford thought on a little further. ‘You know how one sees oneself in a passion—why, how a child looks—the whole face darkened and drawn and possessed? That was the change. That’s how it seems to come back to me. And something, somebody, dodging behind the eyes. Yes; more that than even any excessive change of feature, except, of course, that I also seemed—Shall I ever forget that first cold, stifling stare into the looking-glass! I certainly was much darker, even my hair. But I’ve told you all this before,’ he added wearily, ‘and the scores and scores of times I’ve thought it. I used to sit up there in the big spare bedroom my wife put me up in, simply gloating. My flesh seemed nothing more than an hallucination: there I was, haunting my body, an old grinning tenement, and all that I thought I wanted, and couldn’t do without, all I valued and prided myself on—stacked up in the drizzling street below. Why, Herbert, our bodies _are_ only glass or cloud. They melt, don’t they, like wax in the sun once we’re out. But those first few days don’t make very pleasant thinking. Friday night was the first, when I sat there like a twitching waxwork, soberly debating between Bedlam here and Bedlam hereafter. I even sometimes wonder whether its very repetition has not dulled the memory or distorted it. My wife,’ he added ingenuously, ‘seems to think there are signs of a slight improvement—a going back, I mean. But I’m not sure whether she meant it.’ Herbert surveyed his visitor critically. ‘You say “dark,” he said; ‘but surely, Lawford, your hair now is nearly grey; well-flecked at least.’ Although the remark carried nothing comparatively of a shock with it, yet it seemed to Lawford as if an electric current had passed over his scalp, coldly stirring every hair upon his head. But somehow or other it was easier to sit quietly on, to express no surprise, to let them do or say what they liked. ‘Well’ he retorted with an odd, crooked smile, ‘you must remember I am a good deal older than I was last Saturday. I grew grey in the grave, Herbert.’ ‘But it’s like this, you know,’ said Herbert, rising excitedly, and at the next moment, on reflection, composedly reseating himself. ‘How many of your people actually _saw_ it? How many owned to its being as bad, as complete, as you made out? I don’t want for a moment to cut right across what you said last night—our talk—but there are two million sides to every question, and as often as not the less conspicuous have sounder—well—roots. That’s all.’