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A sociologist might have found much to interest him in Paragon Place, and Keir, who had to live in Paragon Place without studying it impartially and objectively, was open to prejudice, but since all active living is prejudiced, Keir’s fundamental fastidiousness reacted to reality. He was to suffer in Paragon Place because of his fellow human beings. They disliked the smoulder and the separateness of him, and he could not help being what he was.

A sweep named Moore lived at No. 1, and the name was apposite, for Mr. Moore was perennially black, but when he washed and appeared in his back garden, he was very much white. In fact Keir and Mr. Moore were never in conflict. Contact with soot appeared to have made the man more sensitive to other cleanliness. He had a decent little round robin of a wife, and no children.

Jervis, a jobbing gardener, inhabited No. 2, a man who put on a sly civility when he went out to work, and took it off again directly he reached home.

No. 4 was Block, William and Bertha, with two tow-haired boys.

A municipal dustman occupied No. 5, a lorry-driver No. 6.

No. 7, significantly seven, was the hot-spot of Paragon Place. Here lived a Mrs. Job and her two daughters, strapping young wenches who sometimes worked in a laundry and were also public property as ladies of the town. No. 7 was referred to by the local wits as “Job Lot.”

No. 8 was inhabited by a painter, one Phelps, who had at one time worked for Messrs. Samson & Hoad, until his political proclivities had made him a sore spot in the firm’s affairs. Phelps was a communist.

The remaining cottages, numbered nine to twenty-five, housed no fewer than five workers who were on the dole. Keir never came into active contact with any of their occupants, but he was known to them and to Mr. Phelps as a blackleg.

Paragon Place began to become seriously interested in Keir and Sybil when a green van arrived from Messrs. Bond & Beaverbrook’s with the young people’s furniture. Sybil had been given a free day, and Keir had knocked off work at one o’clock, for this was a very great occasion. They were to be married on the Saturday, and they wanted to put No. 3 in order so that it should be ready for them after a four days’ honeymoon. The neighbours were provoked by the appearance of the green van. Mrs. Jervis’s little black head could be seen at her parlour window. Mrs. Block was more bovine and less in ambush. She came and stood at her front door and watched the operations and was inclined to be friendly.

She nodded her frowsy head at Sybil, who was flushed and excited.

“All new.”

Yes, it was all very new.

“Got a pee-anno, I suppose?”

“Not yet.”

“You’ll be kep’ busy paying th’ instalments.”

Sybil, anxiously watching the men inserting a new oak wardrobe through the front entrance, remarked rather casually to Mrs. Block that all the furniture was paid for, and Mrs. Block misunderstood the casualness of Sybil. Stuck-up young bit of goods. And all this swanky new furniture! Mrs. Block’s sandy head was apt to be irritable. She scratched it and went to the back of No. 4 to exchange confidences with the lady of No. 5.

“Seen all the new furniture coming in?”

No. 5 had not. She was a tired little woman who had borne many children, and she lived in awe of Mrs. Block.

“Reg’lar fancy show. Quite—the lidy. Sort that says: ‘Mind the paint, please.’ They’re a couple.”

No. 5 blinked faded eyes.

“Oh, yes, I dare say they feel as fresh as paint. Let ’em wait till they have a few kids kicking the chair legs.”

Mrs. Block laughed. She had a very loud laugh.

“Well, if you ask me—I’m not so pleased to ’ave them for neighbours. And what did they want to come ’ere for? A van-load of swanky new furniture. So refained!”

No. 5 supposed that it was not easy for a young couple to find a vacant cottage in Kingham, and Mrs. Block was still scratching her head. She said: “Mrs. Santer was a decent body. You could borrow ’alf a loaf from ’er—at a pinch. Give me folk you can be neighbourly with.”

But Keir and Sybil were two innocents, so whole-heartedly absorbed in the business of dressing the new home that it occurred to neither of them that their affairs could be of any serious significance to the people next door. They were not conscious of having neighbours. Keir had been laying carpets in the parlour and the front bedroom so that the furniture could be carried in and placed just where Sybil wanted it. She fluttered about, directing operations and getting in the way, but the two men from Messrs. Bond & Beaverbrook’s were as fatherly as the firm.

“Shall we put the bed up for you, miss?”

Sybil blushed.

“We shan’t want it till next week, you know. We are to be married on Saturday.”

The men thought Keir a lucky fellow, going to bed with a pretty thing like that.

“Best of luck, miss.”

Sybil was calling down the stairs to Keir, who was carrying a roll of linoleum into the kitchen.

“Keir, the gentlemen have offered to put up the bed. Shall they?”

“Well, yes. I want to get this linoleum down before the kitchen things come in.”

By five o’clock the men were bundling the wrappings back into the van, and Keir and Sybil were alone together in No. 3.

Said one of the men, with a knowing look at his mate: “Well, if I was that chap—I’d christen that bed—straight off,” and he closed the green doors of the van with a bang.

Sybil had brought a small suitcase with her to No. 3, and the suitcase contained a thermos, some sandwiches, and two slices of Darvels cake. She was the happy mistress of the occasion.

“Let’s have tea in the parlour, Keir.”

She collected some of the new china, and sitting on the Chesterfield sofa, they christened the parlour of No. 3. It was very full of the new furniture, so full that there was very little room to move. In fact, one of the two-guinea arm-chairs had had to be exiled temporarily to the kitchen.

But Sybil was full of enthusiasm and ideas.

“We can have it in the bedroom, Keir.”

Keir laughed.

“The congestion’s pretty serious up there. It’s a good thing you’re not stout, kid, or you’d get caught between the bed and the dressing-table.”

Sybil refilled his cup from the thermos.

“But isn’t it lovely, Keir? And it’s all ours.”