open sights for four hours. We just mowed 'em down."
Another face rang a little bell in my memory. Surely that was Alfred Lyon, the Futurist painter? No, it could not be, for Lyon had dressed like an apache and this man was in conventional evening clothes and looked like a Brigadier in mufti. Alfred Lyon?. . . Yes, there he was, though he had lost his pose—cribbed from Mürger's Vie de Bohème—and his half-starved look, and the wildness in his eyes. As he passed Susy Whincop he spoke a few words, which I overheard.
"I've abandoned Futurism. The Present knocked that silly. Our little violence, which shocked Suburbia, was made ridiculous by the enormous Thing that smashed every convention into a cocked hat. I'm just going to put down some war-scenes—I made notes in the trenches—with that simplicity of the primitive soul to which we went back in that way of life. The soldier's point of view, his vision, is what I shall try for."
"Splendid!" said Susy. "Only, don't shrink from the abomination. We've got to make the world understand—and remember."
I felt a touch on my sleeve, and a voice said, "Hulloa!. . . Back again?"
I turned and saw an oldish-young man, with white hair above a lean, clean-shaven face, and sombre eyes. I stared, but could not fix him.
"Don't you remember?" he said. "Whetherall, of the State Society."
"Oh, Lord, yes!"
I grasped his hand, and tried to keep the startled look out of my eyes. But he saw it, and smiled.
"Four years as a prisoner of the Turk has altered me a bit. This white hair, eh? And I feel like Rip van Winkle."
