Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 5.pdf/495

Rh grotesque—and grotesquely pathetic. He went into his dressing-room, and in the morning "his clo'es," said the valet, "was shied about as though 'e'd lost a ticket." This poor worshipper of beauty and the dream, shaved! He shaved and washed and he brushed his hair, and, his valet testifies, one of the brushes got "shied" behind the bed. Even this throwing about of brushes seems to me to have done little or nothing to palliate his poor human preoccupation with the toilette. He changed his grey flannels—which suited him very well—for his white ones, which suited him extremely. He must deliberately and conscientiously have made himself quite "lovely," as a schoolgirl would have put it.

And having capped his great "renunciation" by these proceedings, he seems to have gone straight to Lummidge's Private and Family Hotel and demanded to see the Sea Lady.

She had retired.

This came from Parker, and was delivered in a chilling manner by the hall-porter.

Chatteris swore at the hall-porter. "Tell her I'm here," he said.

"She's retired," said the hall-porter with official severity.

"Will you tell her I'm here?" said Chatteris, suddenly white.

"What name, sir?" said the hall-porter, in order, as he explains, "to avoid a frackass."

"Chatteris. Tell her I must see her now. Do you hear, now?"

The hall-porter went to Parker, and came half-