The story that had begun so brightly suddenly ceased.
A character and a situation do not make a story.
They had reached the Bank—as if by derision, when he told himself this. He got off the omnibus and got on a westward-bound one harking back to the land he knew. He remembered the expression, "racking one's brains to find a plot." He knew the meaning of it now.
At Piccadilly Circus, where all the things meet, a lanky, wild-looking, red-haired girl in a picture hat and a fit of abstraction—that was the impression she gave—caught his eye. In a moment he was after her.
Here was salvation. Julia Delyse, the last catch-on, whose books were selling by the hundred thousand. He had met her at the Three Arts Ball and once since. She had called him Bobby the second time. He had flirted with her, as he flirted with everything with skirts on, and forgotten her. She was very modern; modern enough to raise the hair on a grandmother's scalp. Her looks were to match.
"Hello," said he.
"Hello, Bobby," said Julia.
"You are just the person I want to see," said Bobby.
"How's that?" said Julia.
"I'm in a fix."