ran along in distress, bolted suddenly into a third-class compartment and the train went on.  The slamming of carriage doors burst out sharp and spiteful like a fusillade; an icy draught mingled with acrid fumes swept the whole length of the platform and made a tottering old man, wrapped up to his ears in a woollen comforter, stop short in the moving throng to cough violently over his stick.  No one spared him a glance.

Alvan Hervey passed through the ticket gate.  Between the bare walls of a sordid staircase men clambered rapidly; their backs appeared alike—­almost as if they had been wearing a uniform; their indifferent faces were varied but somehow suggested kinship, like the faces of a band of brothers who through prudence, dignity, disgust, or foresight would resolutely ignore each other; and their eyes, quick or slow; their eyes gazing up the dusty steps; their eyes brown, black, gray, blue, had all the same stare, concentrated and empty, satisfied and unthinking.

Outside the big doorway of the street they scattered in all directions, walking away fast from one another with the hurried air of men fleeing from something compromising; from familiarity or confidences; from something suspected and concealed—­like truth or pestilence.  Alvan Hervey hesitated, standing alone in the doorway for a moment; then decided to walk home.

He strode firmly.  A misty rain settled like silvery dust on clothes, on moustaches; wetted the faces, varnished the flagstones, darkened the walls, dripped from umbrellas.  And he moved on in the rain with careless serenity, with the tranquil ease of someone successful and disdainful, very sure of himself—­a man with lots of money and friends.  He was tall, well set-up, good-looking and healthy; and his clear pale face had under its commonplace refinement that slight tinge of overbearing brutality which is given by the possession of only partly difficult accomplishments; by excelling in games, or in the art of making money; by the easy mastery over animals and over needy men.

He was going home much earlier than usual, straight from the City and without calling at his club.  He considered himself well connected, well educated and intelligent.  Who doesn’t?  But his connections, education and intelligence were strictly on a par with those of the men with whom he did business or amused himself.  He had married five years ago.  At the time all his acquaintances had said he was very much in love; and he had said so himself, frankly, because it is very well understood that every man falls in love once in his life—­unless his wife dies, when it may be quite praiseworthy to fall in love again.  The girl was healthy, tall, fair, and in his opinion was well connected, well educated and intelligent.  She was also intensely bored with her home where, as if packed in a tight box, her individuality—­of which she was very conscious—­had no play.  She strode like a grenadier, was strong and upright like an obelisk,