stairs, perhaps a little lonely herself, whilst, a few doors away, Joe Krauss slept the sleep of the complaisant. In a few hours Gritty would be on her festive way, and Freddy, in white polo togs, would gallop back to the stern business of life!
And somewhere overhead Cora, poor amateur courtesan, Cora who was almost lovely, almost brilliant, almost a lot of things, Cora whose life just perceptibly flatted, but whose timbre was quite above the average, Cora was sitting up in bed—perhaps reading a green book. Her door would open if he chose to knock—but he did not so choose. He had no more thresholds to cross in Egypt.
He went direct to his room and sat on the window-sill watching the moon, as he had done one night four or five years before in a tiny farm cottage in California. As on that occasion his mind was tinged with memories of the village where he had spent his childhood. The time had come for the prodigal to return.
His decision once taken, Paul set about making definite plans to bring this latest phase of his career to a close. Again he experienced the sensation of taking a new turning in a maze. Into his mind came an echo of a phrase long-forgotten: Aunt Verona's sigh of "God, what a labyrinth, labyrinth, labyrinth!" He was grown-up now, and could say "God" as much as he chose. He could even find it in his heart to wish he had some one to place an occasional check on his weary licences, some one to hold up a finger and reproach him with a "Why, Paul Minas, if you say things like that I shall stop my ears!" That was what Beatie Markwick said to Pat, and Pat doted on it.
Gritty, by flitting across his path like a golden moth, had roused him from one day-dream—a day-dream that had lasted now for two and a half years—and focused his attention on another: a day-dream whose setting was
