I suppose I must have dropped asleep. Suddenly I started as something fell to the floor. I heard him cursing under his breath. “What’s the matter?” I asked. “I’ve only knocked something down—cigarette case or something,” he replied, apologetically. “Aren’t you coming to bed?” I asked. “Yes, I’m coming,” he answered quite docile. He seemed to wander about and knock against things as he came. He dropped heavily into bed. “Are you sleepy now?” I asked. “I dunno—I shall be directly,” he replied. “What’s up with you?” I asked. “I dunno,” he answered. “I am like this sometimes, when there’s nothing I want to do, and nowhere I want to go, and nobody I want to be near. Then you feel so rottenly lonely, Cyril. You feel awful, like a vacuum, with a pressure on you, a sort of pressure of darkness, and you yourself—just nothing, a vacuum—that’s what it’s like—a little vacuum that’s not dark, all loose in the middle of a space of darkness, that’s pressing on you.” “Good gracious!” I exclaimed, rousing myself in bed. “That sounds bad!” He laughed slightly. “It’s all right,” he said, “it’s only the excitement of London, and that little man in the park, and that woman on the seat—I wonder where she is to-night, poor devil—and then Lettie. I seem thrown off my balance.—I think really, I ought to have made something of myself——” “What?” I asked, as he hesitated. “I don’t know,” he replied slowly, “—a poet or something, like Burns—I don’t know. I shall laugh at myself for thinking so, to-morrow. But I am born a generation too soon—I wasn’t ripe enough when I came. I wanted something I hadn’t got. I’m something short. I’m like corn in a wet harvest—full, but pappy, no good. Is’ll rot. I came too soon; or I wanted something that would ha’ made me grow fierce. That’s why I wanted Lettie—I think. But am I talking damn rot? What am I saying? What are you making me talk for? What are you listening for?” I rose and went across to him, saying: “I don’t want you to talk! If you sleep till morning things will look different.” I sat on his bed and took his hand. He lay quite still. “I’m only a kid after all, Cyril,” he said, a few moments later. “We all are,” I answered, still holding his hand. Presently he fell asleep. When I awoke the sunlight was laughing with the young morning in the room. The large blue sky shone against the window, and the birds were calling in the garden below, shouting to one another and making fun of life. I felt glad to have opened my eyes. I lay for a moment looking out on the morning as on a blue bright sea in which I was going to plunge.