Jim seldom got back early enough to assist at these visits; and Lita too, at first, was generally out. But in the last few months Manford had more often found her--or at least, having fallen into the habit of lingering over a cigarette in her boudoir, had managed to get a glimpse of her before going on to that other house where all the clocks struck simultaneously, and the week's engagements, in Maisie Bruss's hand, jumped out at him as he entered his study. This evening he felt more than usually tired--of his day, his work, his life, himself--oh, especially himself; so tired that, the deep armchair aiding, he slipped into a half-doze in which the quietness crept up round him like a tide. He woke with a start, imagining that Lita had entered, and feeling the elderly man's discomfiture when beauty finds him napping... But the room was empty: a movement of his own had merely knocked Miss Vollard's magazine to the floor. He remembered having brought it in to show Lita the photographs of Cedarledge which he supposed it to contain. Would there be time? He consulted his watch--an anachronism in that house--lit another cigarette, and leaned back contentedly. He knew that as soon as he got home Pauline, who had telephoned again that afternoon about the Mahatma, would contrive to corner him and reopen the tiresome question, together with another, which threatened to be almost equally tiresome, about paying that rotten Michelangelo's debts. "If we don't, we shall have him here on our hands: Amalasuntha is convinced you'll take him into the firm. You'd better come home in time to talk things over--." Always talking over, interfering, adjusting! He had enough of that in his profession. Pity Pauline wasn't a lawyer: she might have worked off her steam in office hours. He would sit quietly where he was, taking care to reach his house only just in time to dress and join her in the motor. They were dining out, he couldn't remember where. For a moment his wife's figure stood out before him in brilliant stony relief, like a photograph seen through a stereopticon; then it vanished in the mist of his well-being, the indolence engendered by waiting there alone and undisturbed for Lita. Queer creature, Lita! His lips twitched into a reminiscent smile. One day she had come up noiselessly behind him and surprised him by a light kiss on his hair. He had thought it was Nona... Since then he had sometimes feigned to doze while he waited; but she had never kissed him again... What sort of a life did she really lead, he wondered? And what did she make of Jim, now the novelty was over? He could think of no two people who seemed less made for each other. But you never could tell with a woman. Jim was young and adoring; and there was that red-headed boy...