According to his invariable custom, however, he succeeded in putting
the memory of all this unpleasantness out of his mind with the changing
of his office coat, and after dozing a little in his leather chair
before the fire, he started out as usual for dinner in the Soho French
restaurant, and began to dream himself away into the region of flowers
and singing, and to commune with the Invisibles that were the very
sources of his real life and being.

For it was in this way that his mind worked, and the habits of years had
crystallised into rigid lines along which it was now necessary and
inevitable for him to act.

At the door of the little restaurant he stopped short, a half-remembered
appointment in his mind. He had made an engagement with some one, but
where, or with whom, had entirely slipped his memory. He thought it was
for dinner, or else to meet just after dinner, and for a second it came
back to him that it had something to do with the office, but, whatever
it was, he was quite unable to recall it, and a reference to his pocket
engagement book showed only a blank page. Evidently he had even omitted
to enter it; and after standing a moment vainly trying to recall either
the time, place, or person, he went in and sat down.

But though the details had escaped him, his subconscious memory seemed
to know all about it, for he experienced a sudden sinking of the heart,
accompanied by a sense of foreboding anticipation, and felt that
beneath his exhaustion there lay a centre of tremendous excitement. The
emotion caused by the engagement was at work, and would presently cause
the actual details of the appointment to reappear.

Inside the restaurant the feeling increased, instead of passing: some