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departing as he had come. For purposeful and aggressive advance was the essence of the part he had been driven to play, and were this to fail for a moment the illusion would snap. He would scarcely have passed the Giotto and the Titian before the end would come with a bullet in the back. His only safety – and the only safety of Mr Collins’ luckless loan – was to continue marching breast forward as he had begun.
    Meredith therefore advanced. He advanced upon the door which it appeared to be the young lady’s function to guard, and as he did so he saw her hand hover over the switches of her box. ‘You needn’t announce me,’ he said drily. ‘We’ll just make it a little surprise.’
    The young lady’s eyes widened in dismay. ‘Mr Bubear is in cahnference,’ she said – even in her consternation giving the right filmic intonation to this announcement. ‘Mr Bubear is in cahnference, Mr Birdsong–’
    Meredith blinked. It was extremely valuable to know that he was Mr Birdsong: at the same time, and to one with mild feelings on descent and lineage, it had its disconcerting side. Birdsong at morning – he thought with one of his worst lapses into inconsequence – and starshine at night. It would be nice to be tolerably assured that he would ever know either one or other of these natural phenomena again… ‘Is he, indeed?’ said Meredith. ‘All the same’ – and his voice sank to an ecstatically sadistic whisper – ‘I think we’ll make it a little surprise.’
    And Meredith threw open the door and took the second of his decisive steps into drama.

 
     
III
    Mr Bubear’s conference was with a female friend – a good-looking girl, but dissipated, Meredith judged; and with something in her eyes that suggested drink or drugs. He had the impression that she had been sitting on Mr Bubear’s desk and leaning eagerly towards him – this after a fashion equivocally suggesting either business or dalliance – and now as she slipped rapidly back into a chair she gave Meredith a glance which was first appraising and then fleetingly surprised. Meredith had time to reflect that she was intelligent as well as pretty before bracing himself to meet the first shock of encounter with Mr Bubear himself. Mr Bubear was a pasty-faced man grown thin and dyspeptic in what was demonstrably a mistaken vocation; he would not last long, but meanwhile was sufficiently formidable by reason of the intense nervous energy he was pouring into the effort of holding down the job.
    Meredith got as far as this in analysis while Mr Bubear blustered – standing behind his desk in a tremble and calling upon the Devil to tell him who was this. Adopting the technique that had proved so startlingly successful hitherto, Meredith made no attempt to think like lightning, but simply eyed his antagonist with an unkindly smile while arranging his ideas at leisure. This, however, was not so instantaneously effective as before. Mr Bubear’s indignation at being intruded upon mounted. ‘And who the Devil’, he repeated furiously, ‘are you? And what damned fool let you into this office?’
    Meredith, who felt that this was a very improper way to speak in front of any woman, glanced by way of apology at the young person who had retreated to the other end of the room. When he looked back at Mr Bubear he found that he was being aimed at – ‘covered’ was surely the word – with a revolver, and that his unwilling host was at the same time urgently seeking information through the system of snarling boxes which connected him with his secretary in the outer room. The reply, more urgent still, consisted of a single word. ‘Birdsong’, the box exploded and hissed – and the gulps of the bank attendant could be heard as a faint accompaniment.
    And at this Mr Bubear dropped his revolver, disposed an expression of revolting cordiality over his face, and advanced across the room. ‘My dear Herr Vogelsang,’ he exclaimed, ‘how truly delighted we are