with half-patronizing conventionality, "You'll have to find your
way out alone. Let me know how you have sped at Santa Clara, will
you? Good-by."

The staircase and passage seemed to have grown shabbier and meaner
as Paul, slowly and hesitatingly, descended to the street. At the
foot of the stairs he paused irresolutely, and loitered with a
vague idea of turning back on some pretense, only that he might
relieve himself of the sense of desertion. He had already
determined upon making that inquiry into the colonel's personal and
pecuniary affairs which he had not dared to offer personally, and
had a half-formed plan of testing his own power and popularity in a
certain line of relief that at once satisfied his sympathies and
ambitions. Nevertheless, after reaching the street, he lingered a
moment, when an odd idea of temporizing with his inclinations
struck him. At the farther end of the hotel--one of the parasites
living on its decayed fortunes--was a small barber's shop. By
having his hair trimmed and his clothes brushed he could linger a
little longer beneath the same roof with the helpless solitary, and
perhaps come to some conclusion. He entered the clean but scantily
furnished shop, and threw himself into one of the nearest chairs,
hardly noting that there were no other customers, and that a single
assistant, stropping a razor behind a glass door, was the only
occupant. But there was a familiar note of exaggerated politeness
about the voice of this man as he opened the door and came towards
the back of the chair with the formula:--

"Mo'nin', sah! Shall we hab de pleshure of shavin' or hah-cuttin'
dis mo'nin'?" Paul raised his eyes quickly to the mirror before
him. It reflected the black face and grizzled hair of George.