"Thought I would just drop in to see how you were getting along," the visitor said, rising and shaking hands with his protégé. "Very comfortable quarters here," glancing round Henry's well-furnished room.
"I had just been wondering this very day when I should have the pleasure of seeing you again." The sincerity of Henry's words was apparent on his face.
"I have only run up to town for a week or two before leaving for another spell in Sardinia. I am getting restless again, and there flow the waters of Nepenthe. But the question is: How are you?"
"Pleased with my work, at least, I must say, and fascinated by London. But only to-day I have had a peep at its under side, and I fear that the less one knows of that the better for one's peace."
"'See all, nor be afraid.' Surely you will let Browning advise you if that decadent Adrian Grant is too pessimistic for your healthy British taste," said the visitor, with the hint of a smile.
CHAPTER XIX
THE PEN AND PENCIL CLUB
The "Magpie" is, or was, a hotel of the good old-fashioned homely type, standing in a street off the Strand, in the Adelphi quarter. One must speak thus indefinitely, since the whole face of the neighbourhood has been transformed within recent years, and many a memory-laden house demolished. At the "Magpie" the era of electric bells, elevators, ostentation, had produced no effect, and within hail of many caravansérais, where the pomp and circumstance of King Money might have been seen in all its extravagance, the "Magpie" retained its flavour of old-time cosiness and plainness.