i

At his desk that day, Edgar had worked loyally to keep his attention concentrated upon matters in hand. He had always been in the habit of excluding private concerns from his mind during business hours; and even here, owing to determination and practice, he was partly successful. He did not consciously think of Patricia while he was reading and dictating letters, while he was talking to several exacting visitors, while he telephoned, and even while he lunched in company with other business men. He made no attempt to be alone or to be in company. It was not apparent to any of those who dealt with him that day that he was otherwise than as usual—competent, friendly, and benevolently unshakeable in decision. And yet the secret Edgar, the unsuspected Edgar, the Edgar who was Hamlet, was extremely disturbed. This Edgar was faced with a crisis. He was angry. He was angry and exasperated and broken-hearted. But he was much more angry and exasperated than he was broken-hearted. And in the middle of his emotions, this secret Edgar was engaged in the preposterous act of laughing.

The secret Edgar was, in fact, a little boy who had never grown up; but he concealed this from everybody, and it was supposed that he did not exist. Therefore the really grown-up persons in Edgar's office—such as his typist and his junior clerks and his shipping clerks—had a feeling of superiority to him which was mingled with their feeling of respect. They all thought, privately, how imaginative they were, in being able to enjoy books and plays which contained whimsical notions, and how completely a business man Edgar was. And this secret Edgar, who lost his temper and raged and roared with merriment in the middle of his own furies, was like a little boy who had been angry and cannot keep on being angry because everybody else, so amused, is trying to remain grave. The secret Edgar was unsuspected by those around the outward Edgar; and Edgar lived so entirely in the secret Edgar that he never knew that there was any other Edgar at all. It never entered his head to suppose that there were two Edgars—outside and inside, as it were,—and as the serious Edgar had a day's work to do, the secret Edgar made no attempt to interfere. The day's work was done; the last letter was signed; and Edgar—the composite Edgar—the physical Edgar—was at length free to abandon himself to anger and exasperation and broken heart and laughter. He put his hat unemotionally upon his head, and carefully threaded himself into his overcoat; and then he left the office, and was out in the darkness and traffic of the City of London.

Night in the City of London, on a week-day, is as remarkable and as romantically bizarre as night in some such centre of the engineering industry as Barrow-in-Furness, where the tipping of molten slag and the blazing sky-reflections of many furnaces compose miraculous effects for the sensitive. As Edgar stepped out into the cold air, thousands of people were making the sidewalks impassable, and pressing out into the asphalted roadways, and jostling and going self-absorbed to every point of the compass. Many vehicles were joined in the general hustle and congestion; cabs, omnibuses, postal-vans, and the like, all flashed their way through the crowds. Deafening noises filled the ears. Lights and shadows fought desperately their incessant battle. Boys and young men carrying waste-paper baskets full of letters, or piles of parcels which extended from their waists to their chins, or bundles carried fore and aft across their bent shoulders, staggered from all directions; others ran, doubling in and out among the foot-passengers and the vehicles, unburdened, hurrying hither and thither, their little black hats pressed down upon their ears, or their little cheap soft felt hats cocked askew with impudent carelessness. Others again wore no hats at all, but swung along bare-headed and short-coated even in the chilly evening breeze. High above the streets were globes of white light, which hung centrally, without standards to support them. And in these narrow streets, in the white, fizzing lights, amid the close-running traffic, with this noise and helter-skelter rushing to catch posts and trains and omnibuses dinning into his ears and dazzling his eyes and bewildering his senses, the secret Edgar found himself sensibly exhilarated. It was quite dark, and the sky was invisible. Somewhere beyond the crowd and the lights, and beyond the overhanging murk, it lay; to be guessed and known, but never to be seen. He had worked well all day. He was contented with the way in which various transactions in which he was engaged were progressing. And only one thing in all the world caused him distress; and yet that one thing, so all-important, out-weighed every complacency and every other care. It was a preoccupation. It was Patricia.

Because of Patricia, Edgar was angry and exasperated and broken-hearted. Because of Patricia, he was shaken with preposterous laughter.