She disdained a retort. “We'll arrange, anyhow, with Agatha.”
Campion, escaping from his friends, came up and chatted for a minute. Then he saw Eleanor and her companion to their carriage.
“Now,” said he a moment later, “come to Barbara and have some supper. You won't mind if Jenkins joins us?”
“Who's Jenkins?” I asked.
“Jenkins is an intelligent gas-fitter of Sociological tastes. He classes Herbert Spencer, Benjamin Kidd, and Lombroso as light literature. He also helps us with our young criminals. I should like you to meet him.”
“I should be delighted,” I said.
So Jenkins was summoned from a little knot a few yards off and duly presented. Whereupon we proceeded to Campion's plain but comfortably furnished quarters in Barbara's Building, where he entertained us till nearly midnight with cold beef and cheese and strenuous conversation.
As I walked across Westminster Bridge on my homeward way it seemed as if London had grown less hostile. Big Ben chimed twelve and there was a distinct Dick Whittington touch about the music. The light on the tower no longer mocked me. As I passed by the gates of Palace Yard, a policeman on duty recognised me and saluted. I strode on with a springier tread and noticed that the next policeman who did not know me, still regarded me with an air of benevolence. A pale moon shone in the heavens and gave me shyly to understand that she was as much my moon as any one else's. As I turned into Victoria Street, omnibuses passed me with a lurch of friendliness. The ban was lifted. I danced (figuratively) along the pavement.
What it portended I did not realise. I was conscious of nothing but a spiritual exhilaration comparable only with the physical exhilaration I experienced in the garden at Algiers when my bodily health had been finally established. As the body then felt the need of expressing itself in violent action—in leaping and running (an impulse which I firmly subdued), so now did my spirit crave some sort of expression in violent emotion. I was in a mood for enraptured converse with an archangel.
Looking back, I see that Campion's friendly “Hallo” had awakened me from a world of shadows and set me among realities; the impact of Milligan's vehement personality had changed the conditions of my life from static to dynamic; and that a Providence which is not always as ironical as it pleases us to assert had sent Eleanor Faversham's graciousness to mitigate the severity of the shock. I see how just was Lola's diagnosis. “You're not quite alive even yet.” I had been going about in a state of suspended spiritual animation.