lighted match. On the canvas of his brain was thrown the rich
colouring of the English girl, with the copper-hued luxury of hair and
the eyes that seemed to steal some magic from the fire; and he saw
again those warring lips, the crimson upper one chiding the passionate
scarlet of its twin.

Idly, while enjoying the unusual dissipation of a pre-breakfast
cigarette, he tried to imagine the course of incident and heredity that
had produced her strange personality. That there was a bitterness
somewhere in her disposition was obvious; but it certainly could not
have come from the mother, who was the soul of contentment. He found
himself speculating on the peculiar quality of personality, that
strange thing which makes an individual something apart from others of
his kind, that gift which singles out a girl of ordinary appearance and
leaves one of flawless beauty still wagging her pretty head in the
front row of the chorus. From that point he began to speculate on the
loneliness of personality, which so often robs its owner of the cheery
companionship of commonplace people.

On the whole, he regretted that he was going to see her again so soon.
Her pertness, which had seemed fairly clever the previous night, would
probably descend to triteness in the morning; he could even see her
endeavouring to keep up the same exchange of short sentences. Bah! It
was like a duel with toothpicks. The stolid respectability of Berners
Street lent its aid to the conviction that the morning would hold
nothing but anti-climax.

And he was poet enough to prefer an unfinished sonnet to one with an
inartistic ending.