Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: me in the old days with his confounded cavalry bluster! I rather think I will look him up: and I’ll dine with him three times a week if he likes. Meanwhile, it’s time for me to go and meet old Rainham, and take him round to Brodo- nowski’s. What a ripping sunset! And he strolled light-heartedly through Grosvenor Square, the smoke of his cigarette fading away behind him. CHAPTER IV. When Rainham pushed back the door of the dim little restaurant in Turk Street, Soho, he stood a moment, blinking his eyes a little in the sudden change from the bright summer sunshine, before he assured himself that his friend had not yet arrived. Half a dozen men were sitting about smoking or discussing various drinks. The faces of several were familiar to him, but there were none of them whom he knew; so he took his seat at a table near the door and ordered a vermouth to occupy him until Lightmark, whose unpunctuality was notorious, should put in an appearance. In the interim his eyes strayed round the establishment, taking stock of the walls with their rough decorations, and the clientele, and noting, not without a certain pleasure, that during the six months in which he had been absent neither had suffered much alteration. Indeed, to Philip Rainham, who had doubtless in his blood the taint of Bohemia, Brodonowski’s and the enthusiasm of its guests had a very definite charm. They were almost all of them artists; they were all of them young and ardent; and they had a habit of propounding their views, which were always of the most advanced nature, with a vehemence which to Rainham represented all the disinterestedness of youth. Very often they were exceedingly well worth knowing, though in the majority of cases the world had not found it out. He knew very few of them personally; ho had bee…