be out of the House of Bondage in which I had been a slave, at first willingly and now rebelliously, from my cradle.  The great wide world with its infinite opportunities for development received my liberated spirit.  I had broken the shackles of caste.  I had thrown off the perfumed garments of epicureanism, the vesture of my servitude.  My emotions, once stifled in the enervating atmosphere, now awake fresh and strong in the free air.  I was elemental—­the man wanting the woman; and I was happy because I knew I was going to get her.  Such must be the state of being of a dragonfly on a sunny day.  And—­shall I confess it?—­I had obeyed the dragon-fly’s instinct and attired myself in the most resplendent raiment in my wardrobe.  My morning coat was still irreproachable, my patent leather boots still gleamed, and having had some business in Piccadilly I had stepped into my hatter’s and emerged with my silk hat newly ironed.  I positively strutted along the pavement.

For two days I had not seen her or heard from her or written to her.  I had scrupulously respected her wishes, foolish though they were.  Now I was on my way to convince her that my love was not a moment’s surge of the blood on a spring afternoon.  I would take her into my arms at once, after the way of men, and she, after the way of women, would yield adorably.  I had no doubt of it.  I tasted in anticipation the bliss of that first embrace as if I had never kissed a woman in my life.  And, indeed, what woman had I kissed with the passion that now ran through my veins?  In that embrace all the ghosts of the past women would be laid for ever and a big and lusty future would make glorious beginning.  “By Heaven,” I cried, almost articulately, “with the splendour of the world at my command why should I not write plays, novels, poems, rhapsodies, so as to tell the blind, groping, loveless people what it is like?

“Take me up to Madame Brandt!” said I to the lift-porter.  “Madame Brandt is not in town, sir,” said the man.

I looked at him open-mouthed.  “Not in town?”

“I think she has gone abroad, sir.  She left with a lot of luggage yesterday, and her maid, and now the flat is shut up.”

“Impossible!” I cried aghast.

The porter smiled.  “I can only tell you what has happened, sir.”

“Where has she gone to?”

“I couldn’t say, sir.”

“Her letters?  Has she left no address to which they are to be forwarded?”

“Not with me, sir.”

“Did she say when she was coming back?”

“No, sir.  But she dismissed her cook with a month’s wages, so it seems as though she was gone for a good spell.”

“What time yesterday did she leave?”

“After lunch.  The cabman was to drive her to Victoria—­London, Chatham and Dover Railway.”

“That looks like the 2.20 to Paris,” said I.

But the lift-porter knew nothing of this.  He had given me all the information in his power.  I thanked him and went out into the sunshine a blinking, dazed, bewildered and piteously crushed man.