'Has it been a good day for you?'
'A wonderful day. I want to see where you live.'
He took her home. Down in London, after the Heath, the air seemed
thick and stifling. The square in which he lived was surrounded with
unsavoury streets from which smells that were almost overpowering were
wafted in. His house was a once fashionable mansion now cut up into
flats. He had what were once the servants' quarters under the roof,
three rooms and a bathroom. The windows of his front room looked out
on the tops of trees. Here he worked. The room contained nothing but
a table, a chair, a piano, and a sofa.
'This is the only room,' he said.
'That woman was waiting for you,' said Clara.
'Was she? I didn't see her.'
'Yes. She whisked into her room when she saw me.'
He took up his manuscript from the table.
'It has stopped short.' He turned it over ruefully; fingering the
pages, he began to read and was sinking into absorption in it when she
dashed it out of his hand.
'How dare you read it when I am with you?' she cried. 'It was written
before you knew me. It isn't any good.... I know it isn't any good.'