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you’re away on business; you never take a holiday. What sort of a life do you think I lead, married to you? And now you want to shove me away down in the suburbs, away from all my friends and everyone I know. I’m certainly not going to agree tothat. If that’s the way you feel, the sooner we bring it to an end the better.”
    “You mean that?”
    “I most certainly do.” She paused. “I shall be staying here till Monday; then I shall be going down to Cannes, to Nita Menzies. You can send the papers there.”
    He stood and stared out of the window at the leaden roofs beneath a leaden sky, the running traffic in the street below.
    “As you like,” he said at last. “I’m sorry that we had to come to this.”

CHAPTER II
    H E crossed to London by the midday air service, and went straight to his office. He got there about four o’clock in the afternoon and plunged into his work. He had a long conversation on the telephone with Heinroth, and another with his banking associates in Stockholm. He cleared two days of correspondence in half an hour’s dictation; his typist left him with a sense of grievance and a batch of work that would keep her back an hour and spoil her evening.
    “Half-past five!” she said to her companion in their room, “and all these letters to be done! It’s too bad! But my dear, have you seen him? He’s looking simply awful! Wonder what’s been happening?”
    In his own room Warren sat with Morgan, his confidential secretary. “That’s the Finnish business, then,” he said. “We’re practically home on that. Get the agreements drawn in draft, and we’ll get Heinroth to look over them. Then you can circulate them to the Board. You’ve got it on the agenda?”
    “I have arranged that, sir.”
    He passed a hand wearily across his eyes. “We shan’t hear much of Plumberg for a time. The Moresley Corporation thing is dead, I think. I’m not going to do anything with that chap Cantello.”
    “There’s the Laevatian Oil Development.”
    “Let it sweat. I may be irregular at the office forthe next week or so. I’ve got some personal matters to clear up.”
    The secretary hesitated. “If I may say so, why don’t you take a holiday? You’re looking very tired. I’m sure the Board would wish you not to overdo things, sir.”
    “That’s all right,” said Warren irritably. “I may be away for a day or two. Tell Miss Sale to let me have those letters as soon as they’re ready. I’m going home then.”
    Morgen left him, and he sat alone in his empty office, his fingers drumming nervously upon the leather of the empty desk in front of him. He had said that he was going home; to what sort of home was he going? He pressed a key and spoke into the desk telephone; they were to ring his house and say that he would be in to dinner. He must sell that house, he thought. He must discharge the servants. He would live in a flat, perhaps in Pall Mall or the Albany. He must write to Elise to remove her things. He must see his lawyer. He must go through the tedious, intolerable formalities of a divorce to win a freedom that he did not want. He must start in middle age to build up another life, new interests.
    “It’s going to be lots of fun,” he said bitterly.
    He got up from his desk, and paced up and down the office. In a minute or two he rang irritably for his letters; one or two appeared, which he signed; the remainder were unfinished. He spoke to Morgan on the internal telephone.
    “I’m going now. You’d better sign those letters for me.” He put on his hat and coat and left the office.
    He dined alone that night in his deserted house, sombre in dinner jacket in the empty dining-room, with shadows flickering in the corners from the candles on the table. His butler served him silently, efficiently; Warren ate very little. He took his coffee in the library before the fire; when he had served it Evans waited for a moment by his side.
    Warren looked up. “What is it,