Henry's sleep was feverish¹, and shot with the iridescence² of strange dreams. And during the whole of the next day one thought burned in his brain, the thought of the immense success of Love in Babylon. It burned so fiercely and so brightly, it so completely preoccupied³ Henry, that he would not have been surprised to overhear men whisper to each other in the street as he passed: 'See that extraordinary thought blazing away there in that fellow's brain?' It was, in fact, curious to him that people did not stop and gaze at his cranium, so much the thing felt like a hollowed turnip⁵ illuminated⁶ by this candle of an idea. But nobody with whom he came into contact appeared to be aware of the immense success of Love in Babylon. In the office of Powells were seven full-fledged solicitors⁷ and seventeen other clerks, without counting Henry, and not a man or youth of the educated lot of them made the slightest reference to Love in Babylon during all that day. (It was an ordinary, plain, common, unromantic, dismal⁸ Tuesday in Lincoln's Inn Fields.) Eighteen thousand persons had already bought Love in Babylon; possibly several hundreds of copies had been sold since nine o'clock that morning; doubtless someone was every minute inquiring for it and demanding it in bookshop or library, just as someone is born every minute. And yet here was the author, the author himself, the veritable and only genuine author, going about his daily business unhonoured, unsung, uncongratulated, even unnoticed! It was incredible, and, besides being incredible, it was exasperating⁹. Henry was modest, but there are limits to modesty¹⁰, and more than once in the course of that amazing and endless Tuesday Henry had a narrow escape of dragging Love in Babylon bodily into the miscellaneous conversation of the office. However, with the aid of his natural diffidence he refrained from doing so.  
At five-fifty Sir George departed, as usual, to catch the six-five for Wimbledon, where he had a large residence, which outwardly resembled at once a Bloomsbury boarding-house, a golf-club, and a Riviera hotel. Henry, after Sir George's exit, lapsed¹¹ into his principal's chair and into meditation¹². The busy life of the establishment died down until only the office-boys and Henry were left. And still Henry sat, in the leathern chair at the big table in Sir George's big room, thinking, thinking, thinking, in a vague but golden and roseate manner, about the future.
 
Then the door opened, and Foxall, the emperor of the Powellian office-boys, entered.
 
'Here's someone to see you,' Foxall whispered archly; he economized¹³ time by licking envelopes the while. Every night Foxall had to superintend and participate in the licking of about two hundred envelopes and as many stamps.
 
'Who is it?' Henry asked, instantly perturbed¹⁴ and made self-conscious by the doggishness, the waggishness¹⁵, the rakishness, of Foxall's tone. It must be explained that, since Henry did not happen to be an 'admitted' clerk, Foxall and himself, despite the difference in their ages and salaries, were theoretically equals in the social scale of the office. Foxall would say 'sir' to the meanest articled clerk that ever failed five times in his intermediate, but he would have expired on the rack before saying 'sir' to Henry. The favour accorded to Henry in high quarters, the speciality of his position, gave rise to a certain jealousy¹⁶ of him—a jealousy, however, which his natural simplicity¹⁷ and good-temper prevented from ever becoming formidable. Foxall, indeed, rather liked Henry, and would do favours for him in matters connected with press-copying, letter-indexing, despatching, and other mysteries of the office-boy's peculiar¹⁸ craft.
 
'It's a girl,' said Foxall, smiling with the omniscience²⁰ of a man of the world.
 
'A girl!' Somehow Henry had guessed it was a girl. 'What's she like?'
 
'She's a bit of all right,' Foxall explained. 'Miss Foster she says her name is. Better show her in here, hadn't I? The old woman's in your room now. It's nearly half-past six.'
 
'Yes,' said Henry; 'show her in here. Foster? Foster? I don't know——'
 
His heart began to beat like an engine under his waistcoat.
 
And then Miss Foster tripped in. And she was Goldenhair!
 
'Good-afternoon, Mr. Knight²¹,' she said, with a charming affectation of a little lisp. 'I'm so glad I've caught you. I thought I should. What a lovely room you've got!'
 
He wanted to explain that this was Sir George's room, not his own, and that any way he did not consider it lovely; but she gave him no chance.
 
'I'm awfully²² nervous, you know, and I always talk fast and loud when I'm nervous,' she continued rapidly. 'I shall get over it in a few minutes. Meanwhile you must bear with me. Do you think you can? I want you to do me a favour, Mr. Knight. Only you can do it. May I sit down? Oh, thanks! What a huge chair! If I get lost in it, please advertise. Is this where your clients sit? Yes, I want you to do me a favour. It's quite easy for you to do. You won't say No, will you? You won't think I'm presuming on our slight acquaintanceship?'
 
The words babbled²³ and purled out of Miss Foster's mouth like a bright spring out of moss²⁴. It was simply wonderful. Henry did not understand quite precisely²⁵ how the phenomenon affected²⁶ him, but he was left in no doubt that his feelings were pleasurable. She had a manner of looking—of looking up at him and to him, of relying on him as a great big wise man who could get poor little silly her out of a difficulty. And when she wasn't talking she kept her mouth open, and showed her teeth and the tip of her red, red tongue. And there was her golden fluffy²⁷ hair! But, after all, perhaps the principal thing was her dark-blue, tight-fitting bodice—not a wrinkle in all those curves!
 
It is singular how a man may go through life absolutely blind to a patent, obvious, glaring fact, and then suddenly perceive it. Henry perceived that his mother and his aunt were badly dressed—in truth, dowdy²⁸. It struck him as a discovery.
 
'Anything I can do, I'm sure——' he began.
 
'Oh, thank you, Mr. Knight I felt I could count on your good-nature. You know——'
 
She cleared her throat, and then smiled intimately, dazzlingly, and pushed a thin gold bangle over the wrist of her glove. And as she did so Henry thought what bliss²⁹ it would be to slip a priceless diamond bracelet³⁰ on to that arm. It was just an arm, the usual feminine arm; every normal woman in this world has two of them; and yet——! But at the same time, such is the contradictoriness³¹ of human nature, Henry would have given a considerable sum to have had Miss Foster magically removed from the room, and to be alone. The whole of his being was deeply disturbed, as if by an earthquake. And, moreover, he could scarce speak coherently.
 
'You know,' said Miss Foster, 'I want to interview you.'
 
He did not take the full meaning of the phrase at first.
 
'What about?' he innocently asked.
 
'Oh, about yourself, and your work, and your plans, and all that sort of thing. The usual sort of thing, you know.'
 
'For a newspaper?'
 
She nodded.
 
He took the meaning. He was famous, then! People—that vague, vast entity³² known as 'people'—wished to know about him. He had done something. He had arrested attention—he, Henry, son of the draper's manager; aged³³ twenty-three; eater of bacon for breakfast every morning like ordinary men; to be observed daily in the Underground, and daily in the A.B.C. shop in Chancery Lane.
 
'You are thinking of Love in Babylon?' he inquired.
 
She nodded again. (The nod itself was an enchantment³⁴. 'She's just about my age,' said Henry to himself. And he thought, without realizing that he thought: 'She's lots older than me practically. She could twist me round her little finger.')
 
'Oh, Mr. Knight, she recommenced at a tremendous rate, sitting up in the great client's chair, 'you must let me tell you what I thought of Love in Babylon! It's the sweetest thing! I read it right off, at one go, without looking up! And the title! How did you think of it? Oh! if I could write, I would write a book like that. Old Spring Onions has produced it awfully well, too, hasn't he? It's a boom, a positive, unmistakable boom! Everyone's talking about you, Mr. Knight. Personally, I tell everyone I meet to read your book.'
 
Henry mildly protested against this excess of enthusiasm.
 
'I must,' Miss Foster explained. 'I can't help it.'
 
 
Her admiration³⁵ was the most precious thing on earth to him at that moment. He had not imagined that he could enjoy anything so much as he enjoyed her admiration.
 
'I'm going now, Mr. Knight,' Foxall sang out from the passage.
 
'Very well, Foxall,' Henry replied, as who should say: 'Foxall, I benevolently³⁶ permit you to go.'
 
They were alone together in the great suite³⁷ of rooms.
 
'You know Home and Beauty, don't you?' Miss Foster demanded.
 
'Home and Beauty?'
 
'Oh, you don't! I thought perhaps you did. But then, of course, you're a man. It's one of the new ladies' penny papers. I believe it's doing rather well now. I write interviews for it. You see, Mr. Knight, I have a great ambition to be a regular journalist, and in my spare time at Mr. Snyder's, and in the evenings, I write—things. I'm getting quite a little connection. What I want to obtain is a regular col............