He glared at Kipps, his face flushed deep, his sunken eyes glowing with passion, and then suddenly he changed altogether.
There was a sound of tea things rattling upon a tray outside the door, and Sid rose to open it.
"All of which amounts to this," said Masterman, suddenly quiet and again talking against time. "The world is out of joint, and there isn't a soul alive who isn't half waste or more. You'll find it the same with you in the end, wherever your luck may take you.... I suppose you won't mind my having another cigarette?"
He took Kipps' cigarette with a hand that trembled so violently it almost missed its object, and stood up, with something of guilt in his manner as Mrs. Sid came into the room.
Her eye met his and marked the flush upon his face.
"Been talking Socialism?" said Mrs. Sid, a little severely.
§5
Six o'clock that day found Kipps drifting eastward along the southward margin of Rotten Row. You figure him a small, respectably attired figure going slowly through a sometimes immensely difficult and always immense world. At times he becomes pensive and whistles softly. At times he looks about him. There are a few riders in the Row, a carriage flashes by every now and then along the roadway, and among the great rhododendrons and laurels and upon the greensward there are a few groups and isolated people dressed in the style Kipps adopted to call upon the Walshinghams when first he was engaged. Amid the complicated confusion of Kipps' mind was a regret that he had not worn his other things....
Presently he perceived that he would like to sit down; a green chair tempted him. He hesitated at it, took possession of it, and leant back and crossed one leg over the other.
He rubbed his under lip with his umbrella handle and reflected upon Masterman and his denunciation of the world.