After uttering these words the Professor walked away from the table.
Ossipon, whom that piece of insight had taken unawares, gave one
ineffectual start, and remained still, with a helpless gaze, as though
nailed fast to the seat of his chair. The lonely piano, without as much
as a music stool to help it, struck a few chords courageously, and
beginning a selection of national airs, played him out at last to the
tune of "Blue Bells of Scotland." The painfully detached notes grew
faint behind his back while he went slowly upstairs, across the hall, and
into the street.

In front of the great doorway a dismal row of newspaper sellers standing
clear of the pavement dealt out their wares from the gutter. It was a
raw, gloomy day of the early spring; and the grimy sky, the mud of the
streets, the rags of the dirty men, harmonised excellently with the
eruption of the damp, rubbishy sheets of paper soiled with printers' ink.
The posters, maculated with filth, garnished like tapestry the sweep of
the curbstone. The trade in afternoon papers was brisk, yet, in
comparison with the swift, constant march of foot traffic, the effect was
of indifference, of a disregarded distribution. Ossipon looked hurriedly
both ways before stepping out into the cross-currents, but the Professor
was already out of sight.




CHAPTER V


The Professor had turned into a street to the left, and walked along,