The trouble she had looked for should have been between herself and him, and she was prepared to tackle it so soon as it showed its head, but this trouble he kept to himself, outside her. And though she called it unhappiness, she knew well enough that he was not unhappy. Indeed, it was a joy to him to find himself more and more alive to the world, the little, grubby, amusing corner of it in Mitcham Mews, and the great roaring whirlpool outside in which lay his work. His pleasure in London was no longer purely emotional; no longer did he, as it were, implore London to let him be a part of it. He was working in it, contributing to its life, to its bustle and noise; but since his talks with Kilner and his reading of the poetical works of the old ragamuffin, he had been able little by little to detach himself from it and watch all that was going on. Truly there was never a more amusing city! Everything was on show. Everybody had the air of expecting to be looked at and admired; though everybody pretended also that he or she had no such expectation. When provincials arrived in London they seemed to feel all this and to wince before it, but soon they perked up their heads and behaved as though all eyes were upon them. And they went to the show-places, those of which there had been talk in their homes from their earliest recollection. But everything else also was a show to them. More and more the shops tended to become shows. Government offices were being pulled down and rebuilt to make more show. Exalted personages were bent on making a show of their common humanity. Even in the city, the offices in which Londoners worked--the counting-house behind the shop--were being razed to the ground to give place to colossal palaces of ferro-concrete and marble and plate-glass. Motor-cars were growing more and more garish and glossy; the advertisements on the hoardings were more and more crudely colored. For whom was the show? For whom was all the outpouring and display of wealth? Hardly, thought René, for Mitcham Mews, that sink of the submerged and those who could only just hold their heads above water. He thought he could find the answer in the miles and miles of little houses like the house in Hog Lane, six rooms, attics, and cellars, constantly stretching out to the west and to the east; the unceasing expansion of mediocrity, a flooring of concrete, warranted fireproof, to keep the fantastic creations of wealth uncontaminated by the sources from which wealth sprang.