speculator with nerves of iron, and courage which would have
glorified a nobler cause. Nor had his been the methods of good
fellowship, the sharing of "good turns," the camaraderie of finance.
The men with whom he had had large dealings he had treated as
enemies rather than friends, ever watching them covertly with close
but unslackening vigilance. And now, for the present at any rate
it was all over. There had come a pause in his life. His back was
to the City and his face was set towards an unknown world. Half
unconsciously he had undertaken a little voyage of exploration.

>From the Strand he crossed Trafalgar Square into Pall Mall, and up
the Haymarket into Piccadilly. He was very soon aware that he had
wandered into a world whose ways were not his ways and with whom he
had no kinship. Yet he set himself sedulously to observe them,
conscious that what he saw represented a very large side of life.
>From the first he was aware of a certain difference in himself and
his ways. The careless glance of a lounger on the pavement of Pall
Mall filled him with a sudden anger. The man was wearing gloves,
an article of dress which Trent ignored, and smoking a cigarette,
which he loathed. Trent was carelessly dressed in a tweed suit and
red tie, his critic wore a silk hat and frock coat, patent-leather
boots, and a dark tie of invisible pattern. Yet Trent knew that he
was a type of that class which would look upon him as an outsider,
and a black sheep, until he had bought his standing. They would
expect him to conform to their type, to learn to speak their jargon,
to think with their puny brains and to see with their short-sighted
eyes. At the "Criterion" he turned in and had a drink, and, bolder
for the wine which he had swallowed at a gulp, he told himself that
he would do nothing of the sort. He would not alter a jot. They
must take him as he was, or leave him. He suffered his thoughts to