"I know," said Kilner. "A man does when he seeks to find love only in women." René winced. His friend laughed at him: "Oh, you are not the only one. It begins very early. Women exploit their motherhood as they have exploited their womanhood to get us. It is not their fault. Men have kept their joy from them and preserved their brutishness. There is an even more bitter disgust lying in wait for those who seek to find love only outside women." Ann came in on that. She stopped inside the door, and glowered at the painter. "Oh, so you've come back?" "Yes," said Kilner, rising. "Like a bad penny." "Don't get up. I ain't no lady. You been talking?" "Yes," said René. "Shall I make some tea? Had a good evening?" "No. Rotten." She had not moved from the door. Her eyes came back to Kilner. "You can go on talking. I'm off to my bed." And she slipped from the door into the bedroom. René met his friend's eyes. They were grimly ironical. VII OLD LUNT The glass is full, and now my glass is run: And now I live, and now my life is done. OLD Lunt was a dirty old man who wore a cracked bowler hat rammed down on his head, a frock-coat green with age, trousers that hung in loops and folds about his lean shanks, and boots held together with leather laces and bits of string. He had one room at the corner of the mews, and he lived God knows how. Ann always said that he would stand on the doorstep of a butcher's shop and sniff like a dog, and stay there until they flung him a scrap of meat. On a Saturday night he was to be seen prowling about the shops, feeling the rabbits and fowls, and then shuffling away as though his appetite had been satisfied through his fingers. He never shaved, but clipped his beard close. The skin hung so loose on his jaws that shaving would have been perilous. His eyes were gray, watery, and red-rimmed, and he had ears like red rosettes. He used to watch for René to come out, and then wait by his own door to see if the car left the yard. If it did not, then he would come shambling along and stand at the gate of the yard. And if René were working on his car he would edge nearer and nearer until he could peer into the engine. Often he would stand quite silent, and go away without a word. Occasionally he would talk and mumble. "I remember when there warn't no railways, and my brother Philip drove his horses from Glossop to Sheffle. They used to say there wouldn't be no engines. But there was engines. Then they said there wouldn't be no engines on the road. But there is engines on the road. And things grow worse and worse for poetry." With variations, that was his customary address. About once a month he would sidle up to René and beg for the loan of one shilling, and ten days or a fortnight later he would return a penny or twopence. "Interest, interest. Times bad. I must ask you to extend the loan."