Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 7.pdf/481

 staircase. They went down one tier of that square spiral in silence.

"Are you coming up again next year," asked Miss Heydinger.

"No," said Lewisham. "No, I shall not come here again. Ever."

Pause. "What will you do?" she asked.

"I don't know. I have to get a living somehow. It's been bothering me all the session."

"I thought—" She stopped. "Will you go down to your uncle's again?" she said.

"No. I shall stop in London. It's no good going out of things into the country. And besides—I've quarrelled rather with my uncle."

"What do you think of doing?—teaching?"

"I suppose it will be teaching. I'm not sure. Anything that turns up."

"I see," she said.

They went on down in silence for a time.

"I suppose you will come up again?" he asked.

"I may try the botanical again—if they can find room. And, I was thinking—sometimes one hears of things. What is your address? So that if I heard of anything"

Lewisham stopped on the staircase and thought. "Of course," he said. He made no effort to give her the address, and she demanded it again at the foot of the stairs.

"That confounded nephridium—!" he said. "It has put everything out of my head."

They exchanged addresses on leaflets torn from Miss Heydinger's little notebook.