“It has been waiting for you long enough,” she answered. He turned and went with a dull thud of his stockinged feet across to the dining-room. Emily rang for the maid, I followed George, leaving the betrothed together. I found my host moving about the dining-room, looking behind the chairs and in the corners. “I wonder where the devil my slippers are!” he muttered explanatorily. Meanwhile he continued his search. I noticed he did not ring the bell to have them found for him. Presently he came to the fire, spreading his hands over it. As he was smashing the slowly burning coal the maid came in with the tray. He desisted, and put the poker carefully down. While the maid spread his meal on one corner of the table, he looked in the fire, paying her no heed. When she had finished: “It’s fried white-bait,” she said. “Shall you have that?” He lifted his head and looked at the plate. “Ay,” he said. “Have you brought the vinegar?” Without answering, she took the cruet from the sideboard and set it on the table. As she was closing the door, she looked back to say: “You’d better eat it now, while it’s hot.” He took no notice, but sat looking in the fire. “And how are you going on?” he asked me. “I? Oh, very well! And you——?” “As you see,” he replied, turning his head on one side with a little gesture of irony. “As I am very sorry to see,” I rejoined. He sat forward with his elbows on his knees, tapping the back of his hand with one finger, in monotonous two-pulse like heart-beats. “Aren’t you going to have breakfast?” I urged. The clock at that moment began to ring a sonorous twelve. He looked up at it with subdued irritation. “Ay, I suppose so,” he answered me, when the clock had finished striking. He rose heavily and went to the table. As he poured out a cup of tea he spilled it on the cloth, and stood looking at the stain. It was still some time before he began to eat. He poured vinegar freely over the hot fish, and ate with an indifference that made eating ugly, pausing now and again to wipe the tea off his moustache, or to pick a bit of fish from off his knee. “You are not married, I suppose?” he said in one of his pauses. “No,” I replied. “I expect I shall have to be looking round.” “You’re wiser not,” he replied, quiet and bitter. A moment or two later the maid came in with a letter. “This came this morning,” she said, as she laid it on the table beside him. He looked at it, then he said: “You didn’t give me a knife for the marmalade.” “Didn’t I?” she replied. “I thought you wouldn’t want it. You don’t as a rule.” “And do you know where my slippers are?” he asked. “They ought to be in their usual place.” She went and looked in the corner. “I suppose Miss Gertie’s put them somewhere. I’ll get you another pair.”