The journey back to London was like the waking moments of a dream. He gazed out of the carriage window. He couldn’t bear to look at Hal; his eyes seemed dead, as though all the mind behind them was full of darkened passages. It wasn’t easy to be brave just now, so he turned his face away from him.

“Teddy.” There was no one in the carriage but themselves. “Did she ever say anything about me?”

“She said that you were fond of her.”

“Ah, yes, but I don’t mean that. Did she ever say how she felt herself?”

“About you?”

“About me.”

There was hunger in Hal’s voice—hunger in the way he listened for the answer.

“Not—not exactly. But she liked you immensely. She really did, Hal. She looked forward most awfully to your coming.”

“Any child would have done that when a man brought her presents. Then she didn’t say she loved me? No, she wouldn’t say that.”

Hal spoke bitterly. Teddy felt that Desire was being accused and sprang to her defense. “I don’t see how you could expect her to love you after what you had done.” The man looked up sharply. “After what I had done! D’you mean kidnaping her, or something further back?”

“I mean taking her away from her mother.”

Hal laughed gloomily. “No, as you say, a person with no claims on her couldn’t expect her to love him after that.”

Sinking his head forward, he relapsed into silence and sat staring at the seat opposite. When the train was galloping through the outskirts of London, he spoke again.

“I’ve dragged you into something that you don’t understand. Don’t try to understand it; but there’s something I want to say to you. If ever you’re tempted to do wrong, remember me. If ever you’re tempted to get love the wrong way, be strong enough to do without it. It isn’t worth having. You have to lie and cheat to get it at first, and you have to lie and cheat to keep some of it when it’s ended.” He turned his face away, speaking shamefully and hurriedly. “I sinned once, a long while ago—I don’t know whether you’ve guessed. I’m still paying for it. You’re paying for it. One day that little girl may have to pay the biggest price of any of us. I was trying to save her from that.”

Through the window shabby rows of cabs showed up. A porter jumped on the step, asking if there was any luggage. Hal waved him back. Turning to Teddy, he said, “When you’ve sinned, you never know where the paying ends. It touches a thousand lives with its selfishness. Remember me one day, and be careful.”

Driving home in the hansom, he referred but once to the subject “I’ve made you suffer. I don’t know how much—boys never tell. I owed you something; that’s why I spoke to you just now.”

Teddy’s arrival home scattered the last mists of his dream-world. As the cab drew up before the house, the door flew open and his father burst out, bundling a mildly protesting old gentleman down the steps.

“No, I don’t paint little pigs,” he was shouting, “and I don’t paint little girls sucking their thumbs and cooing, ‘I’m baby.’ You’ve come to the wrong shop, old man; no offense. I’m an artist; the man you’re looking for is a sign-painter. Good evening.”

The door banged in the old gentleman’s face. Jimmie Boy was so enjoying his anger that he didn’t notice that in closing the door he was shutting out his son.

When Teddy had been admitted by Jane, he heard his mother’s voice dodging through his father’s laughter like a child through a crowd.

“You needn&rs............