We discussed the weather, which was worth
discussing, for the spring, after long tarrying, had come. It was early
May. Lola laughed.
"The spring has got into my blood."
"It hasn't got into mine," I declared. "It never will. I wonder what the
deuce is the matter with me."
Then Lola had said, "My dear Simon, I know. You're not quite alive even
yet."
I walked homewards pestered by the phrase. What did she mean by it?
I stopped at the island round the clock-tower by Victoria Station and
bought a couple of newspapers. There, in the centre of the whirlpool
where swam dizzily omnibuses, luggage-laden cabs, whirling motors,
feverish, train-seeking humans, dirty newsboys, I stood absently saying
to myself, "You're not quite alive even yet."
A hand gripped my arm and a cheery voice said "Hallo!" I started and
recognised Rex Campion. I also said "Hallo!" and shook hands with him.
We had not met since the days when, having heard of my Monte Cristo
lavishness, he had called at the Albany and had beguiled me into giving
a thousand pounds to his beloved "Barbara's Building," the prodigious
philanthropic institution which he had founded in the slums of South
Lambeth.
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