that the cathedral was very narrow, and that instead of the choir was a
staircase, also clothed in Turkey carpet. On the lowest step reposed an
object whose nature he could not at first determine.

"Would it be for long?" the lips opposite him muttered cautiously.

His reply--the reply of an impulsive, shy nature--was to rush out of the
palace. He had identified the object on the stairs. It was a slop-pail
with a wrung cloth on its head.

He felt profoundly discouraged and pessimistic. All his energy had left
him. London had become hard, hostile, cruel, impossible. He longed for
Leek with a great longing.


_Tea_


An hour later, having at the kind suggestion of the cabman deposited
Leek's goods at the cloak-room of South Kensington Station, he was
wandering on foot out of old London into the central ring of new London,
where people never do anything except take the air in parks, lounge in
club-windows, roll to and fro in peculiar vehicles that have ventured
out without horses and are making the best of it, buy flowers and
Egyptian cigarettes, look at pictures, and eat and drink. Nearly all the
buildings were higher than they used to be, and the street wider; and at
intervals of a hundred yards or so cranes that rent the clouds and
defied the law of gravity were continually swinging bricks and marble
into the upper layers of the air. Violets were on sale at every corner,
and the atmosphere was impregnated with an intoxicating perfume of