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 in desperation at their loneliness; the ticket col- lectors lounged in the shade of the trees and dozed. Here and there an occasional carriage broke the long monotony of deserted road; fre- quently that carriage was so obviously hired for the occasion as to need no second glance. Now and again the strident transatlantic ac- cent reached him; frequently he passed a little knot of foreigners, the women overdressed, the men unspeakable. Though he took no in- terest in them, he could not help comparing the men with the women. The Frenchwoman, if she did not always look a lady, wore clothes of some attractiveness; but the men!

Slowly the conviction was forced on him that London deserted was a restful, pleasant sort of place, though from another point of view the desolation was wicked. Yet at that mo- ment he would have found little to charm him in a crowd.

As he swung along by Stanhope Gate he glanced eagerly to the right and left. Twice already he had walked from the Row to the Marble Arch, and he was now beating the homeward journey. Sometimes he would dash across the grass to get a better view of a wom-

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