"By George, I'd like to be in London to-night. Do you know the Pall Mall restaurant? I used to go there a lot. Piccadilly Circus with the shops all lit up, and the crowd. I think it's stunning to stand there and watch the buses and taxis streaming along as though they'd never stop. And I like the Strand too. What are those lines about God and Charing Cross?" I was taken aback. "Thompson's, d'you mean?" I asked. I quoted them. _"And when so sad, thou canst not sadder,_ _Cry, and upon thy so sore loss_ _Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder_ _Pitched between Heaven and Charing Cross."_ He gave a faint sigh. "I've read _The Hound of Heaven_. It's a bit of all right." "It's generally thought so," I murmured. "You don't meet anybody here who's read anything. They think it's swank." There was a wistful look on his face, and I thought I divined the feeling that made him come to me. I was a link with the world he regretted and a life that he would know no more. Because not so very long before I had been in the London which he loved, he looked upon me with awe and envy. He had not spoken for five minutes perhaps when he broke out with words that startled me by their intensity. "I'm fed up," he said. "I'm fed up." "Then why don't you clear out?" I asked. His face grew sullen. "My lungs are a bit dicky. I couldn't stand an English winter now." At that moment another man joined us on the verandah and Lawson sank into a moody silence. "It's about time for a drain," said the new-comer. "Who'll have a drop of Scotch with me? Lawson?" Lawson seemed to arise from a distant world. He got up. "Let's go down to the bar," he said. When he left me I remained with a more kindly feeling towards him than I should have expected. He puzzled and interested me. And a few days later I met his wife. I knew they had been married for five or six years, and I was surprised to see that she was still extremely young. When he married her she could not have been more than sixteen. She was adorably pretty. She was no darker than a Spaniard, small and very beautifully made, with tiny hands and feet, and a slight, lithe figure. Her features were lovely; but I think what struck me most was the delicacy of her appearance; the half-caste as a rule have a certain coarseness, they seem a little roughly formed, but she had an exquisite daintiness which took your breath away. There was something extremely civilised about her, so that it surprised you to see her in those surroundings, and you thought of those famous beauties who had set all the world talking at the Court of the Emperor Napoleon III. Though she wore but a muslin frock and a straw hat she wore them with an elegance that suggested the woman of fashion. She must have been ravishing when Lawson first saw her.