“We’re all sinners,” shouted the preacher. (They stopped and looked at each other with a faint smile.  All sinners—­that was what Nevill used to say, all sinners—­or fools.) “We’re all sinners, you and me, but Jesus can save us.  ’E loves sinners.  ‘E bears their sins; your sins an’ my sins, dear brethren; ’e bears the sins of the ’ole world.  Why, that’s wot ’e came inter the world for—­to save sinners.  Ter save ’em from death an’ everlasting ’ell!  That’s wot Jesus does for sinners.”

Oh, Molly, Molly, what has he done for fools?

He took her to Ridgmount Gardens, and left her at the door of the flat.

She was incomprehensible, this little Mrs. Tyson.  But up till now his own state of mind had been plain.  He knew where he was drifting; he had always known.  But where she was drifting, or whether she was drifting at all, he did not know; that is to say, he was not sure.  And up till now he had not tried very hard to make sure.  He was a person of infinite tact, and could boast with some truth that he had never done an abrupt or clumsy thing.  By this time his attitude of doubt had given a sort of metaphysical character to this interest of the senses; he was almost content to wait and let the world come round to him.  It was to be supposed that Mrs. Nevill Tyson, being Mrs. Nevill Tyson, would have fathomed him long ago if he had been of the same clay as her engaging husband.  He was of clay, no doubt, but it was not the same clay; and it was impossible to say how much she knew or had divined; other women were no rule for her, or else—­No.  One thing was certain, he would never have betrayed Tyson until Tyson had betrayed her.  As it was, his relations with her were sufficiently abnormal to be exciting; it was not passion, it was a rush of minute sensations, swarming and swirling like a dance of fire-flies—­an endless approach and flight.

After all, he would not have had it otherwise.  The charm, he told himself, was in the levity of the situation.  The thread by which she held him was so fine that it could be broken any day.  There would be no pangs of conscience, no tears, no reproaches; no tyrannies of the heart and revolutions of the soul.  It was to Mrs. Nevill Tyson’s eternal credit that she made no claims.  Clearly, when a tie can be broken to-morrow, there is no urgent necessity for breaking it to-day.

So in the afternoon Stanistreet called again at Ridgmount Gardens.

Whether or no Mrs. Nevill Tyson ignored the possibility of passion, she had the largest ideas of the scope and significance of friendship.  She made no claims, but she exacted from Louis a multitude of small services for which he was held to be sufficiently repaid in smiles.  Whether she knew it or not, she had grown dependent on him.  She had always shown an affecting confidence in the integrity of masculine judgment, and she consulted him about her dividends and the pattern of her gowns with equally guileless reliance.