“The responsibility!” sighed the Ambassador. He broke off and offered his hand. “You will be at the reception, of course,” he said. “We must meet more often! I shall see that something is arranged. Au revoir, Mr. Whipplestone.”

They parted. Mr. Whipplestone walked on, passing and, tactfully, ignoring the escort.

Facing him at the point where the Walk becomes the northeast border of the Square was a small house between two large ones. It was painted white with a glossy black front door and consisted of an attic, two floors and a basement. The first-floor windows opened on a pair of miniature balconies, the ground-floor ones were bowed. He was struck by the arrangement of the window-boxes. Instead of the predictable daffodil one saw formal green swags that might have enriched a della Robbia relief. They were growing vines of some sort which swung between the pots where they rooted and were cunningly trimmed so that they swelled at the lowest point of the arc and symmetrically tapered to either end.

Some workmen with ladders were putting up a sign.

He had begun to feel less depressed. Persons who do not live there will talk about “the London feeling.” They will tell you that as they walk down a London street they can be abruptly made happy, uplifted in spirit, exhilarated. Mr. Whipplestone had always taken a somewhat incredulous view of these transports but he had to admit that on this occasion he was undoubtedly visited by a liberated sensation. He had a singular notion that the little house had induced this reaction. No. 1, as he now saw, Capricorn Walk.

He approached the house. It was touched on its chimneys and the eastern slope of its roof by sunshine. “Facing the right way,” thought Mr. Whipplestone. “In the winter it’ll get all the sun there is, I daresay.” His own flat faced north.

A postman came whistling down the Walk as Mr. Whipplestone crossed it. He mounted the steps of No. 1, clapped something through the brass flap, and came down so briskly that they nearly collided.