"We've finished everything," said the clerk.

The Head of the Department assumed an air of mystery and coughed.

"I don't think I can very well see my way to letting you go," he said.
"I am very sorry," he added quickly, "and if it depended on me you
should go at once. But He," he added--he always alluded to the Head of
the Office as He--"does not like it. He may come in at any moment and
find you gone. No; I'm afraid I can't let you go to-day. Now, if it had
been yesterday you could have gone."

"I should only be away an hour," said Rufinus, tentatively.

"He might choose just that hour to come round. If it depended only on me
you should go at once," and he laughed and slapped Rufinus on the back,
jocularly.

The clerk did not press the point further.

"You'd better get on with that index," said the high official as Rufinus
withdrew.

He told the result of his interview to his sporting friend, who started
out by himself to the Hippodrome.

Rufinus settled down to his index. But he soon fell into a mood of
abstraction. The races and the games did not interest him in the least.
It was something else which attracted him. And, as he sat musing, the
vision of the Hippodrome as he had last seen it rose clearly before him.
He saw the seaweed-coloured marble; the glistening porticoes,