"You will have to," I said.

"What.... Dismiss me?... Throw the indispensable Soane overboard like a
squeezed lemon?... Would you?... What would Fox say?... Eh? But you
can't, my boy--not you. Tell you ... tell you ... can't.... Beforehand
with you ... sick of it.... I'm off ... to the Islands--the Islands of
the Blest.... I'm going to be an ... no, not an angel like Fox ... an
... oh, a beachcomber. Lie on white sand, in the sun ... blue sky and
palm-trees--eh?... S.S. Waikato. I'm off.... Come too ... lark ...
dismiss yourself out of all this. Warm sand, warm, mind you ... you
won't?" He had an injured expression. "Well, I'm off. See me into the
cab, old chap, you're a decent fellow after all ... not one of these
beggars who would sell their best friend ... for a little money ... or
some woman. Will see the last of me...."

I didn't believe he would reach the South Seas, but I went downstairs
and watched him march up the street with a slight stagger under the
pallid dawn. I suppose it was the lingering chill of the night that made
me shiver. I felt unbounded confidence in the future, there was nothing
now between her and me. The echo of my footsteps on the flagstones
accompanied me, filling the empty earth with the sound of my progress.




CHAPTER EIGHTEEN


I walked along, got to my club and upstairs into my room peaceably. A
feeling of entire tranquillity had come over me. I rested after a strife