THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT 501

laughing together, holding arms, clasping hands, kiss-
ing. Slinking through this Venusberg, like a shabby
young wolf, he could not forget. It never gave him a
chance. He had never given himself a chance. He had
nothing to put in the way, no ambition, no interests, no
friends; so far he had asked for little, merely food,
shelter, and trifling amusement, except love. In his heart
of hearts he did not want to forget.

That first phase of unusual smartness, brushed hair,
clean collars, creased trousers, had passed; he could not
bother with that any more; if Lena wanted him to be
smart again, well and good, she could tell him so; but
meanwhile, he was his old shabby self, indeed shabbier
than ever. Mr. Dersingham, Mr. Smeeth, Miss Matfield
wrere beginning to give him some queer glances at the
office. Well, they could look; so long as he kept the job
at all (and that was certainly important), it did not
matter to him; he was careless of all that. He was care-
less of most things these days. His finances, always diffi-
cult, had now drifted into a very bad state, and he owed
Mrs. Pelumpton a pound or two, and even then he had
to cut his ordinary expenses down to the lowest level,
which meant that he had to feed cheaply and scantily.
That did not matter either, for only now and then did
he feel really hungry. Mr. Pelumpton, the old fool, had
told him several times he ought to see a doctor, and even
Mrs. Pelumpton was beginning to ask him if he hadn't
a pain anywhere, he looked "that bad/' she said. He
told her that he hadn't a pain, though this was not true,
for very often now he had a sort of pain, not easy to
describe, but roughly amounting to a tender hollowness
in his head. He tried one or two things at the chemist's,
just to make him sleep, for the nights following these