“Well,” continued Philip, filling up his glass, “when I got back to England I was so frantically nervous that I could hardly speak or think. I felt insane, unclean--mentally. I felt I was going mad, and could not bear to be seen by anyone who had known me--that is why I was such a fool as not to come to you. You have your revenge! I can’t tell you, Teddie, how depression roared through me! I made up my mind to die, but I had a wild desire to know to what sort of place I should go. And then I met Clinton. I had rushed up to London one day just to get the inane anodyne of noise and people, and I suppose I was more or less tight, for I walked into a club of sorts called the ‘Chorazin’ in Soho. The door-keeper tried to turn me out, but I pushed him aside, and then someone came up and led me to a table. It was Clinton. “Now there is no doubt he has great hypnotic power. He began to talk, and I at once felt calmer and started to tell him all about myself. I talked wildly for an hour, and he was so deft and delicate in his handling of me that I felt I could not leave him. He has a marvellous insight into abnormal mental--psychic--whatever you like to call them--states. Some time I’ll describe what he looks like--he’s certainly like no one else in the world. “Well, the upshot was that he came down to Franton next day and stayed on. Now, I know that his motives were entirely mercenary, but none the less he saved me from suicide, and to a great extent gave back peace to my mind. “Never could I have imagined such an irresistible and brilliant talker. Whatever he may be, he’s also a poet, a profound philosopher and amazingly versatile and erudite. Also, when he likes, his charm of manner carries one away. At least, in my case it did--for a time--though he borrowed £20 or more a week from me. “And then one day my butler came to me, and with the hushed gusto appropriate to such revelations murmured that two of the maids were in the family way and that another had told him an hysterical little tale--floating in floods of tears--about how Clinton had made several attempts to force his way into her bedroom. “Well, Teddie, that sort of thing is that sort of thing, but I felt such a performance couldn’t possibly be justified, that taking advantage of a trio of rustics in his host’s house was a dastardly and unforgivable outrage. “Other people’s morals are chiefly their own affair, but I had a personal responsibility towards these buxom victims--well, you can realise just how I felt.