"Every man needs a Lode Star," said Parkson--and Lewisham swore under
his breath.
Parkson's lodgings were now near at hand to the left, and it occurred
to him this boredom would be soonest ended if he took Parkson home,
Parkson consented mechanically, still discoursing.
"I have often seen you talking to Miss Heydinger," he said. "If you
will pardon my saying it ..."
"We are excellent friends," admitted Lewisham. "But here we are at
your diggings."
Parkson stared at his "diggings." "There's Heaps I want to talk
about. I'll come part of the way at any rate to Battersea. Your Miss
Heydinger, I was saying ..."
From that point onwards he made casual appeals to a supposed
confidence between Lewisham and Miss Heydinger, each of which
increased Lewisham's exasperation. "It will not be long before you
also, Lewisham, will begin to know the infinite purification of a Pure
Love...." Then suddenly, with a vague idea of suppressing Parkson's
unendurable chatter, as one motive at least, Lewisham rushed into the
confidential.
"I know," he said. "You talk to me as though ... I've marked out my
destiny these three years." His confidential impulse died as he
relieved it.
"You don't mean to say Miss Heydinger--?" asked Parkson.
"Oh, _damn_ Miss Heydinger!" said Lewisham, and suddenly, abruptly,
uncivilly, he turned away from Parkson at the end of the street and
began walking away southward, leaving Parkson in mid-sentence at the
crossing.
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