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In winter Paragon Place was less communal than in summer, for most of the gardens were dirty brown blankets tucked up under the grey sky, and citizens did not linger at their doors. Debates and arguments removed themselves to the bar of the “George,” a somewhat slovenly pub in Richmond Road where the sociable members of both sexes warmed themselves both within and without.

It might be said that the population of Paragon Place could be divided into those who pubbed and those who did not, the abstainers being in a serious minority and regarded as socially smug. Paragon Place had its own hatred of high-brows, for the paunch of the low-brow and the pate of the high-brow do not mingle over the pots.

Yet Keir was not cut off completely from members of the other clique. He met some of them during his comings and goings, and the cheery salutation was not passed to him: “Hallo, Bob”—or “Morning, Jim.” He was under suspicion; he never stood a chap a drink or became sociably and reassuringly silly.

Coming home late one February evening, he met under the street lamp at the end of the road the two Job girls, very much dressed up and with somewhere to go. They were in spirits, two mischievous young wenches out upon adventure, and when they and Keir met by the street lamp, he stepped off the pavement to let them pass. He did not look at them, and to the Misses Job he was both dull dog and little Pharisee. There was no “Hallo, Gertie!” about Keir.

They broke into giggles at the confrontation and at his abrupt divergence. The occasion had its humour. The elder of the two girls seized her inspiration.

“Hallo, darling.”

They passed on with sudden laughter, and Keir, suddenly hot about the ears, stepped back on to the pavement. Damned young—! They were still laughing, and a valediction was cast back to him.

“Wifie’s waiting, dear. Get busy.”

Yes, he was not persona grata to Paragon Place, and he was misliking Paragon Place more and more. Like sex, it involved you and submerged you, and it was the sweet seductiveness of sex that had hurried him into this back street. It would have been so much better if he and Sybil had waited for a year. Meanwhile his urge to escape from certain environments crystallized upon the little, sordid thread that was Paragon Place. It was like some sinister and suggestive fate, slowly spreading its shadow over the world of his endeavour, darkening it, obscuring it. Almost Paragon Place propounded to him the old metaphysical problem of “Free Will and Fatalism.”

On yet another night, when the street lamps were blurred by fog, Keir came suddenly upon two shapes blocking the little iron gateway of No. 3, Mr. Block and Mr. Phelps, both in drink and on the dole. Mr. Block had mistaken the gateway of No. 3 for that of No. 4, and the coming of Keir added to the complication, for Mr. Block remained in the gateway, but he was not so drunk that he did not recognize his neighbour.

“What d’yer want ’ere?”

Keir explained curtly that he wanted to reach his own door, and Mr. Block was suddenly and grossly amused.

“Don’t know his own gate, Syd! The little blighter’s boozed.”

It was a huge joke, and Mr. Block enjoyed it.

“You go in there, Mr. Smiff, and see what my old woman gives yer. She won’t hang round your neck, my lad.”

Keir, who was tired and irritable, did not deign to argue the point. He slipped over the iron rail on the top of the wall, putting a foot on one of Sybil’s wallflowers.

He said: “Start at the end and count and you’ll find yourself one short of four.”

He had reached the door, but Phelps, the communist, who was less and differently drunk from his comrade, became suddenly eloquent. He had the gift of language, especially when in liquor. His bitterness would blaze into furious, cold invective.

“Here, ’alf a mo. I’ve got something to say to you, Mr. Smith.”

He entered the gangway of No. 4 and, leaning over the dividing fence, pointed a long first finger at Keir as though menacing him with a pistol.

“—— little blackleg.—Overtime, overtime, —— old Samson’s ——, with other fellahs starving. Yes, you —— little skunk. I’d have you shot and shoved underground. Yes, you think you’re going to be an employer, a —— boss, climbing on the backs of your betters. Overtime, overtime! What you want is—”

Keir, astonished by the other man’s fury, stood there holding the handle of his front door.

“Seem a bit excited, Phelps.”

“By God, don’t you give me any of your lip or I’ll come over the fence at you. If I had my way, I’d have every man out of that —— business. A lot of blacklegs, that’s what you are, and we know it, and we’re not going to forget it. You wait till the next general strike comes along, and we’ll show you something.”

Keir opened the door of No. 3.

“That’s all right—then. How to get everybody down in the gutter, I suppose?”

He went in, closing the door. He locked it, and in the passage he found Sybil frightened and trembling.

“What is it, Keir?”

He was white and scornful.

“Only two of our nice neighbours—rather drunk and seeing red. Nothing to worry about. Just Paragon Place.”