not get away from it, either. It was held there, illuminated, insisted
on, repeated for ever and ever, smaller and smaller, an endless
procession of faces, all animated by one frenzy and one flame. He was
appalled by this mysterious multiplication of his person, and by the
flushed and brilliant infamy of his face. The face was the worst; he
thought he had never seen anything so detestable as the face. He sat
down and hid it in his hands.

"Poor Rickets," said Poppy softly. She drew his hands from his face by
a finger at a time.

"Oh, Ricky-ticky, you are such a rum little fellow. I suppose that's
why I like you. But for the life of me I can't think why I kissed you;
unless it was to say Good-night."

A kiss more or less was nothing to Poppy. And that one, she felt, had
been valedictory. She had kissed, not Ricky-ticky, but his dying
Innocence, the boy in him. And she had really wanted him to go.

The house was stiller than ever. The canary had tucked his head under
his wing and gone to sleep again. Out of the silence the clock of St.
Pancras Church struck one.

And yet he had not gone.




CHAPTER XI