“What is it?” asked Mendel, aghast.
“I’ll tell you when we get back to London. We must go back this afternoon. Eight o’clock in the Pot-au-Feu.”
The Pot-au-Feu was a little restaurant in Soho which Mitchell, Weldon, and some others had endeavoured to render immortal by decorating it with panels. In a room above it lived Hetty Finch.
Mendel’s thoughts flew to her, a figure of ill omen. He had not seen her for some time, and had imagined that she had so successfully got all she wanted and was so thoroughly established in her composite profession that she had no time for the younger artists. He had heard tales about her, and fancied she would succeed in hooking one of the older men for a husband.
He said:—
“Why do you want to go back to that beastly place? Here it is good. I could stay here for six months.”
“Gawd!” said Mitchell dismally. “’Tis life. There’s absolutely no getting away from it. Everything is swallowed up and nothing is left.”
He became very solemn and added:—
“If anything happens to me, Kühler, I want you to go to Greta Morrison and tell her that through everything I never forgot my happiness with her.”