the kitchen, or at least as far as the threshold thereof. His wife was
at work there. Upon every handle or article that might soil she put soft
brown paper, and in addition she often wore house-gloves; so that her
hands remained immaculate; thus during the earlier hours of the day the
house, especially in the region of fireplaces, had the air of being in
curl-papers.

"I'm going out now, Alice," he said, after he had drawn on his finely
polished boots.

"Very well, love," she replied, preoccupied with her work. "Lunch as
usual." She never demanded luxuriousness from him. She had got him. She
was sure of him. That satisfied her. Sometimes, like a simple woman who
has come into a set of pearls, she would, as it were, take him out of
his drawer and look at him, and put him back.

At the gate he hesitated whether to turn to the left, towards High
Street, or to the right, towards Oxford Road. He chose the right, but he
would have enjoyed himself equally had he chosen the left. The streets
through which he passed were populated by domestic servants and
tradesmen's boys. He saw white-capped girls cleaning door-knobs or
windows, or running along the streets, like escaped nuns, or staring in
soft meditation from bedroom windows. And the tradesmen's boys were
continually leaping in and out of carts, or off and on tricycles, busily
distributing food and drink, as though Putney had been a beleaguered
city. It was extremely interesting and mysterious--and what made it the
most mysterious was that the oligarchy of superior persons for whom
these boys and girls so assiduously worked, remained invisible. He
passed a newspaper shop and found his customary delight in the placards.
This morning the _Daily Illustrated_ announced nothing but: "Portrait of