One night as he was passing a glaring public-house in Chelsea, he thought he saw his father go in by the door of the bar parlor. He drew up, stopped his engine, and followed. Sure enough it was his father, aged a little, grayer, but more sprucely clad. Mr. Fourmy was already the center of a little group standing by the counter--painters, models, and men who looked like actors. He was talking away, exactly as he used to do in the Denmark, with the same result in laughter and free drinks. René ordered a Bass and took it to a table at the side, removed his peaked cap, and waited for his father to recognize him. This Mr. Fourmy did in a few minutes, nodded with perfect coolness, and went on with his talk. He kept it up for a few moments longer, "touched" one of his hearers for half-a-crown, and, that done, let the conversation flag, the group dissolve, and came over to his son. They shook hands. René grinned as he saw his father's amazement at his clothes. "Well, I'm jiggered," said Mr. Fourmy, "I was fair flummoxed when I saw your face. I didn't notice your togs. I never thought you would come to this." "I shouldn't have done any good in your profession, father." "So you've learned some sauce. That's new." "I've learned a good many things, father, and unlearned more." "Have you learned what a rotten hole the world is?" "No. I like it too much to think ill of it." "Then you haven't had a really bad time. I hoped you'd have a filthy time. You needed it badly, to let some of the gas out of you." "It's been bad enough," said René. "And there's worse ahead. Are you living in London?" "I've been here some time. It's a dung-heap. I shall go over to Paris. I'd rather die there than anywhere. There is French blood in us, I believe, and I never could stomach the English and their hypocritical ways. What did they say of Gladstone? 'Plays with the ace up his sleeve, and pretends God put it there.' That's the English way. I like blackguards. I'm a blackguard myself, but I think God ought to be kept out of it. . . . You're looking fit." "I'm fit enough. George told me you'd left. I'd like to know why. I don't want to open old scores or inquire into your private affairs, but it seemed to me that my mother was very good to you when you came back." "Well---- It was the same old trouble. Religion. Marriage is none too easy, as you seem to have found. You can worry through if you play fair and fight through the emotional storms that threaten to drown you. Now it isn't fair for a man to draw off his emotional disturbances in drink or money-making or gambling or flirtation; and it isn't fair for a woman to draw off hers in religion. Women are devils at that. They go off to church and come back as cold as ice, with their hands full of little parcels of principles and precepts, all forgiveness and humility and submission and iron virtue. Some men can live with it. I can't. That's the whole story." "Thank you," said René.