"It's very good of you," said Wally, "but I'm afraid I shall be going
back to America at any moment now."

Pique, that ally of the devil, regained its slipping grip upon Jill.

"Oh? I'm sorry," she said indifferently. "Well, goodbye, then."

"Good-bye."

"I hope you have a pleasant voyage."

"Thanks."

He turned into the cloak-room, and Jill went up the stairs to join
Derek. She felt angry and depressed, full of a sense of the futility
of things. People flashed into one's life and out again. Where was
the sense of it?


3.

Derek had been scowling, and Derek still scowled. His eyebrows were
formidable, and his mouth smiled no welcome at Jill as she approached
him. The evening, portions of which Jill had found so enjoyable, had
contained no pleasant portions for Derek. Looking back over a
lifetime whose events had been almost uniformly agreeable, he told
himself that he could not recall another day which had gone so
completely awry. It had started with the fog. He hated fog. Then had
come that meeting with his mother at Charing Cross, which had been
enough to upset him by itself. After that, rising to a crescendo of