"I am myself again," he declared firmly. "I can feel the change already."
Burton eyed him anxiously.
"Cigarette taste all right now?"
"Delicious!" Mr. Waddington replied. "Most exquisite tobacco! Makes me shiver inside to think how I could ever have smoked that other filthy rubbish."
"No idea of calling in at the Golden Lion on your way back, eh?" Burton persisted.
Mr. Waddington's expression was full of reproach. "The very thought of that place, with its smell of stale beer and those awful creatures behind the bar, makes me shiver," he confessed. "I shall walk for an hour before lunch in Kensington Gardens. If I have a moment to spare I shall run into the Museum and spend a little time with the mosaics. What a charming effect the sunlight has coming through those trees, Burton! I want you to come down and see my rooms sometime. I have picked up a few trifles that I think you would appreciate."
"I will come with pleasure," Burton replied. "This afternoon, if you could spare a few minutes?" the auctioneer suggested. "We might go around and look at that Romney which has just been unearthed. I have been to Christie's three times already to see it, but I should like to take you. There's something about the face which I don't quite understand. There is a landscape there, too, just sent up from some country house, which I think would interest you."
Burton shook his head and moved feverishly towards his desk.
"I am going to work," he declared. "You have frightened me a little. I must economize time. I shall write a novel, a novel of real life. I must write it while I can still see the perfect truth."