He had such beautiful manners. When he had gone, Mr. Plunkett muttered something under his breath about darkies, and dropped the slip of paper with the address on it into the wastebasket. She waited awhile and then, when the chemist was not looking, retrieved the paper.

Dr. Kreutz had his consulting room-that was what he called it-in an old house on Adelaide Road, in the basement flat there. When she saw it first she was disappointed. She was not sure what she had expected, but it was not this poky, dingy place with a single window, the top half of which looked out on a narrow strip of fusty grass and a bit of black iron railing. On the day after he had come into the shop, a Wednesday, which meant early closing and therefore she had the afternoon off, she told Billy she was going to visit her mother and took the bus to Leeson Street Bridge and walked down Adelaide Road, keeping to the opposite side, under the trees in front of the Eye and Ear Hospital. She passed by the house once and made herself go all the way to the top of Harcourt Street before turning round and coming back, this time on the right-hand side. She glanced at the house as she went past, and read the brass plate mounted on a wooden board on the railings.

DR. HAKEEM KREUTZ

SPIRITUAL HEALER

There was nothing to be seen in Dr. Kreutz's window, the panes of which gave her back briefly an indistinct, watery reflection of her head and shoulders. She told herself she was being stupid, creeping about the streets like this on an October afternoon, using up her half day. What if he should come out of the house and see her there, and maybe remember her? And just as she was thinking it, there he was all of a sudden, walking towards her from the Leeson Street direction.