Then, recognizing the policeman on his beat, a friendly fellow always ready with a joke and (at election times) with a vote, George pulled himself together and made the necessary response: “How do, Tom?”

“Fine, thanks—bar a touch of rheumatics… I was at the stone- layin’. It’s bin a grand day for ye, and I wouldn’t say ye don’t deserve it.”

“Thanks, Tom.”

“Ye’ve worked for it hard enough. I can remember when ye used to swear ye’d have those Mill Street houses pulled down, and folks’d laugh at ye then, but I’ll bet they can see it’s no joke now. Aye, ye’ve made a grand start. How long d’you reckon the whole job’ll take?”

“Years,” George answered (but he would have been shocked if he could have been told how many). His voice was rather grim, and he did not amplify as he usually did when anyone encouraged him to discuss his plans. Tom noticed this and muttered sympathetically: “Well, I’ll be gettin’ along—mustn’t keep you talkin’ this hour… ‘Night, George—or rather, good mornin’.”

George fumbled the key in the lock and re-entered his house. He felt, as he had hoped, exhausted, but not, as he had also hoped, insensitive to the alone-ness. It flew at him now like a wild thing as he strode along the lobby and heard, in imagination, Livia’s call from upstairs that had so often greeted him when he came home late from meetings—“That you, George?” Who else did she expect it to be, he would ask her waggishly, and feel sorry that she was such a light sleeper, since his meetings were so often late and the late meetings so frequent…

He went to the kitchen and made himself a cup of tea, sitting there at the small scrubbed table till dawn showed grey through the windows; then he went to the room with the books in it which he called his ‘study’. The time-table lay open on the desk, reminding him of the impending journey for which his tiredness now gave him even physical distaste; and next to the time-table was the small pile of letters that Annie had brought in during the interview with Winslow. George glanced through them idly, and with equal distaste. Suddenly then his glance changed to a gaze and his gaze to a stare, for the writing on one of the envelopes was Livia’s and the postmark was Vienna.

He read it through, and through again, stumbling to his armchair with the alone-ness all around him as he faced the issue. Time passed in a curious vacuum of sensation; he did not realize it was so long until he saw the sunlight brightly shining, glinting already on the gilt titles of his books. Then he crossed the room to his desk and reached for pen and paper.

He wrote out a wire first of all: “Regret must cancel Vienna trip for reasons will explain fully in letter.”

Then he wrote the letter without pause as follows:

“DEAR LORD WINSLOW—By now you will have got my wire, and are probably surprised by my change of mind. The reason for it is simply that I have just read a letter from my wife. It came yesterday—actually while you and I were discussing things. I put it aside with other letters and only noticed it an hour ago. Though short, it is a very frank letter, and in view of what it says there seems little that I can do now—except what Livia asks. I do not pretend to understand how these things happen, and why, but I have to take into account her age, which was not much more than half mine when I married her, so that if it was a mistake, I’d blame myself more than her. Anyhow, it would be unjust and stupid to expect her to cling to it for the rest of her life. Maybe she is old enough now to know what she really does want, and if your son is also, I won’t stand in their way—no, I CAN’T—neither on moral grounds nor for social and professional reasons such as you might have. So there’s nothing I could do in Vienna except make the whole thing more troublesome for all concerned. Please excuse what may strike you as a hasty reconsideration and perhaps even the breaking of a promise, but I’ve already thought it all over as much as a thing like this can be thought over. As for what I feel, that matters to no one except myself, but I would like to say how deeply I appreciate the way you approached me yesterday. No one could have been kinder and I shall never forget it.—Yours sincerely, GEO. BOSWELL.”

George always signed himself ‘Geo.’ in important or official letters because that was how Will Spivey set up his business letter- heads— ‘Geo. Boswell, Printer and Bookbinder’. And under that, in smaller type: ‘Proprietor of the Guardian Press, Market Street, Browdley’. And under that, in even smaller type: ‘Estimates Free. Good Work Guaranteed.’

* * * * *

About seven o’clock he went to the corner, posted the letter, and re-entered his house to find that Annie had returned from spending a night with her mother across the town and had already noticed his bag half packed on the bed upstairs. “ANOTHER conference?” she exclaimed. “Why, it’s only last week-end you was away at the last one…”

“It’s cancelled,” George answered.