to vanish subtly, to withdraw himself, as into some sacred and
inviolable retreat.

Spinks crept away, saddened by the rebuff. After all, he was no nearer
to Rickman drunk than to Rickman sober. Half an hour later, he was
asleep in the adjoining room, dreaming a lightsome dream of ladies and
_mousselines de laine_, when suddenly the dream turned to a
nightmare. It seemed to him that there descended upon him a heavy
rolling weight, as of a bale of woollens. He awoke and found that it
was Rickman.

The poet lay face downwards across the body of his friend, and was
crooning into his ear the great chorus from the third act of Helen in
Leuce. He said that nobody but Spinky understood it. And Spinky
couldn't understand it if he wasn't drunk.

Whereupon Spinks was most curiously uplifted and consoled.




CHAPTER XIII


He woke tired out, as well he might be, after spending half the night
in the pursuit of young Joy personified in Miss Poppy Grace, young
Joy, who, like that little dancer, is the swiftest of all swift
things.

Rickman carried into this adventure a sort of innocence that renewed