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disdained humanity in the mass; he adopted the attitude
of one who wraps himself in solitariness and watches with
disgust the antics of the vulgar; but Clutton and Lawson
talked of the multitude with enthusiasm. They described
the seething throng that filled the various fairs of Paris, the
sea of faces, half seen in the glare of acetylene, half hidden
in the darkness, and the blare of trumpets, the hooting of
whistles, the hum of voices. What they said was new and
strange to Philip. They told him about Cronshaw.
‘Have you ever read any of his work?’
‘No,’ said Philip.
‘It came out in The Yellow Book.’
They looked upon him, as painters often do writers, with
contempt because he was a layman, with tolerance because
he practised an art, and with awe because he used a medi-
um in which themselves felt ill-at-ease.
‘He’s an extraordinary fellow. You’ll find him a bit dis-
appointing at first, he only comes out at his best when he’s
drunk.’
‘And the nuisance is,’ added Clutton, ‘that it takes him a
devil of a time to get drunk.’
When they arrived at the cafe Lawson told Philip that
they would have to go in. There was hardly a bite in the au-
tumn air, but Cronshaw had a morbid fear of draughts and
even in the warmest weather sat inside.
‘He knows everyone worth knowing,’ Lawson explained.
‘He knew Pater and Oscar Wilde, and he knows Mallarme
and all those fellows.’
The object of their search sat in the most sheltered corner

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