caravanserai’ and a shorthand school.  Indeed the aspect of Bedford Square, where the great institution of the basement and area still flourished in perfection, and wealthy menials with traditional manners lived sensually in caves beneath the spacious, calm salons of their employers and dupes,—­the aspect of Bedford Square gave the illusion that evolution was not, and that Bloomsbury and the whole impressive structure of British society could never change.  Still, from a more dubious Bloomsbury, demure creatures with inviting, indiscreet eyes were already traversing the prim flags of Bedford Square on their way to the evening’s hard diplomacy.  Mr. Lucas made quiet remarks about their qualities, but George did not respond.

“Look here, old man,” said Lucas, “there’s no use in all this gloom.  You might think Lucas & Enwright had never put up a building in their lives.  Just as well to dwell now and then on what they have done instead of on what they haven’t done.  We’re fairly busy, you know.  Besides——­”

He spoke seriously, tactfully, with charm, and he had a beautiful voice.

“Quite right!  Quite right!” George willingly agreed, swinging his stick and gazing straight ahead.  And he thought:  “This chap has got his head screwed on.  He’s miles wiser than I am, and he’s really nice.  I could never be nice like that.”

In a moment they were at the turbulent junction of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street, where crowds of Londoners, deeply unconscious of their own vulgarity, and of the marvellous distinction of Bedford Square, and of the moral obligation to harmonize socks with neckties, were preoccupying themselves with omnibuses and routes, and constituting the spectacle of London.  The high-heeled, demure creatures were lost in this crowd, and Lucas and George were lost in it.

“Well,” said Lucas, halting on the pavement.  “You’re going down to the cathedral.”

“It’ll please the old cock,” answered George, anxious to disavow any higher motive.  “You aren’t coming?”

Lucas shook his head.  “I shall just go and snatch a hasty"....  ’Cup of tea’ was the unuttered end of the sentence.

“Puffin’s?”

Lucas nodded.  Puffin’s was a cosy house of sustenance in a half-new street on the site of the razed slums of St. Giles’s.  He would not frequent the orthodox tea-houses, which were all alike and which had other serious disadvantages.  He adventured into the unusual, and could always demonstrate that what he found was subtly superior to anything else.

“That affair still on?” George questioned.

“It’s not off.”

“She’s a nice little thing—­that I will say.”

“It all depends,” Lucas replied sternly.  “I don’t mind telling you she wasn’t so jolly nice on Tuesday.”

“Wasn’t she?” George raised his eyebrows.

Lucas silently scowled, and his handsomeness vanished for an instant.

“However——­” he said.