"Oh, I'm on the Klipp case at the Old Bailey."
Humphrey came away profoundly disturbed. Something entirely unexpected had happened. Lilian had lived as the vaguest shadow at the back of his mind, just as he had last seen her, when she bent down to kiss him, and now this picture would have to be erased. He shuddered at the thought. She was Beaver's "girl": she would be Beaver's "missis."
After all, what did it matter? He and Lilian had long since parted; there had been little in common between them. He might have married her, and been as Beaver; she might have married him, but never, never, could she have held the magic and the inspiration of Elizabeth Carr.
His mind, always susceptible to outside influences, brooded on the new fact that had come into his life. Unconsciously, as a natural sequel to his thoughts, he began to dream of his new love, and to see himself happier than he had ever been, with Elizabeth for ever at his side. The same motives that impelled him to Lilian after that scene in the registry office, when Wratten was married, now urged him towards Kenneth Carr's sister....
And, of course, one day, Beaver would have to mention his name to Lilian. She would probably smile and say nothing. "He's engaged now," Beaver would say. "There won't be any bachelors left, soon." And that would be his message to Lilian.
On a Saturday evening some weeks later, Humphrey sat in the dismantled room in Clifford's Inn, in which he and Kenneth Carr had shared so many hours of grateful friendship.
The room looked forlorn enough. Square gaping patches on the wall marked the places where pictures had once hung; the windows were bared of curtains and the floor was dismal without the carpet, littered with scraps of paper and little pieces of destroyed letters. Trunks and boxes ready for the leaving were in the small entrance hall, now robbed of its curtains and its comfort. A pair of old boots, a broken pipe, a row of empty bottles and siphons, a chipped cup or two--these alone formed the salvage which the room would rescue from Kenneth's presence.
"This," said Kenneth, taking the pipe-rack from the mantelpiece, "this, my son, I give and bequeath to you." He laughed, and tossed it over to Humphrey, who caught it neatly.