The Voice of Virtue 283.
Yet in spite of all this subtlety he had a downright
British doggedness ; the most perverse train of reasoning
would suddenly pull out into a bulldog kind of con-
clusion that would leave one wondering whether he had
been really thinking at all on the lines he pretended.
The upshot in my own case was to keep me up to the
mark. So I went to bed, meaning to get up early and go
to the Turker in the morning. But as it happened, we
both slept late. By the time we were dressed we were
getting hungry for lunch.
I was annoyed at this. I had wanted to get out of
the house and change my ideas as completely as possible.
The Hot Room is an excellent place for the purpose.
While I’m there, I find I can’t think of anything at all
but the immediate effects of the temperature.
I was annoyed, too, to find Lou comparatively
cheerful. I decided I would go out after all and have
lunch in the Cooling Room, when the porter called up
to ask if we could see a lady and gentleman.
These people had begun to obsess me. I demanded
their names. There was a pause as if a discussion were
taking place at the other end of the wire; and then
he announced that it was Mrs. Webster and a friend.
Why the mystery ? I didn’t want to see her. What
did she want with me? I had taken a strong dislike
to the woman. I had come to blame her for putting us
on to the drug business. It was so much easier than
blaming myself. ,
However, we couldn’t exactly refuse to see her, so
I told the porter to show them up.
“So it was you,” we both said in a breath as we
advanced to meet each other. We were referring to
the night of the suicide dinner at the Wisteria. As I
was going out of the room I had thought I recognised
her ; but I had supposed she was out of London. She
had been a couple of months before; but my mind
had gotten into such a state that it never occurred to
me that she might have come back.
That's the sort of thing that heroin does to one. One