I have read of men who, when forced by their calling to live for long periods in utter solitude¹—save for a few black faces—have made it a rule to dress regularly for dinner in order to maintain their self-respect and prevent a relapse into barbarism. It was in some such spirit, with an added touch of self-consciousness, that, at seven o’clock in the evening of September 23 in a recent year, I was making my evening toilet in my chambers² in Pall³ Mall. I thought the date and the place justified⁴ the parallel; to my advantage even; for the obscure Burmese administrator⁵ might well be a man of blunted sensibilities and coarse fibre, and at least he is alone with nature, while I—well, a young man of condition and fashion, who knows the right people, belongs to the right clubs, has a safe, possibly a brilliant, future in the Foreign Office—may be excused for a sense of complacent⁶ martyrdom, when, with his keen appreciation⁸ of the social calendar, he is doomed⁹ to the outer solitude of London in September. I say “martyrdom”, but in fact the case was infinitely¹⁰ worse. For to feel oneself a martyr⁷, as everybody knows, is a pleasurable thing, and the true tragedy of my position was that I had passed that stage. I had enjoyed what sweets it had to offer in ever dwindling¹¹ degree since the middle of August, when ties were still fresh and sympathy abundant. I had been conscious that I was missed at Morven Lodge¹³ party. Lady Ashleigh herself had said so in the kindest possible manner, when she wrote to acknowledge the letter in which I explained, with an effectively austere¹⁴ reserve of language, that circumstances compelled me to remain at my office. “We know how busy you must be just now”, she wrote, “and I do hope you won’t overwork; we shall all miss you very much.” Friend after friend “got away” to sport and fresh air, with promises to write and chaffing condolences, and as each deserted¹⁵ the sinking ship, I took a grim delight in my misery¹⁶, positively¹⁷ almost enjoying the first week or two after my world had been finally dissipated to the four bracing¹⁸ winds of heaven. I began to take a spurious interest in the remaining five millions, and wrote several clever letters in a vein¹⁹ of cheap satire²⁰, indirectly²¹ suggesting the pathos²² of my position, but indicating that I was broad-minded enough to find intellectual entertainment in the scenes, persons, and habits of London in the dead season. I even did rational things at the instigation of others. For, though I should have liked total isolation²³ best, I, of course, found that there was a sediment²⁴ of unfortunates like myself, who, unlike me, viewed the situation in a most prosaic²⁵ light. There were river excursions, and so on, after office-hours; but I dislike the river at any time for its noisy vulgarity, and most of all at this season. So I dropped out of the fresh air brigade and declined H——’s offer to share a riverside cottage and run up to town in the mornings. I did spend one or two week-ends with the Catesbys in Kent; but I was not inconsolable when they let their house and went abroad, for I found that such partial compensations did not suit me. Neither did the taste for satirical observation last. A passing thirst, which I dare say many have shared, for adventures of the fascinating kind described in the New Arabian Nights led me on a few evenings into some shady haunts in Soho and farther eastward²⁶; but was finally quenched²⁷ one sultry Saturday night after an hour’s immersion²⁸ in the reeking²⁹ atmosphere of a low music-hall in Ratcliffe Highway, where I sat next a portly female who suffered from the heat, and at frequent intervals³⁰ refreshed herself and an infant from a bottle of tepid³¹ stout³².  
By the first week in September I had abandoned all palliatives, and had settled into the dismal³³ but dignified³⁴ routine of office, club, and chambers. And now came the most cruel trial, for the hideous³⁵ truth dawned on me that the world I found so indispensable could after all dispense³⁶ with me. It was all very well for Lady Ashleigh to assure me that I was deeply missed; but a letter from F——, who was one of the party, written “in haste, just starting to shoot”, and coming as a tardy³⁷ reply to one of my cleverest, made me aware that the house party had suffered little from my absence, and that few sighs were wasted on me, even in the quarter which I had assumed to have been discreetly³⁸ alluded³⁹ to by the underlined all in Lady Ashleigh’s “we shall all miss you”. A thrust which smarted more, if it bit less deeply, came from my cousin Nesta, who wrote: “It’s horrid⁴⁰ for you to have to be baking in London now; but, after all, it must be a great pleasure to you” (malicious little wretch⁴¹!) “to have such interesting and important work to do.” Here was a nemesis⁴² for an innocent illusion I had been accustomed to foster in the minds of my relations and acquaintances, especially in the breasts of the trustful and admiring maidens⁴⁴ whom I had taken down to dinner in the last two seasons; a fiction which I had almost reached the point of believing in myself. For the plain truth was that my work was neither interesting nor important, and consisted chiefly at present in smoking cigarettes, in saying that Mr So-and-So was away and would be back about October 1, in being absent for lunch from twelve till two, and in my spare moments making précis of—let us say—the less confidential⁴⁵ consular⁴⁶ reports, and squeezing the results into cast-iron schedules. The reason of my detention⁴⁷ was not a cloud on the international horizon—though I may say in passing that there was such a cloud—but a caprice on the part of a remote and mighty⁴⁸ personage, the effect of which, ramifying downwards⁴⁹, had dislocated the carefully-laid holiday plans of the humble⁵⁰ juniors, and in my own small case had upset the arrangement between myself and K——, who positively liked the dog-days in Whitehall.
 
Only one thing was needed to fill my cup of bitterness, and this it was that specially⁴³ occupied me as I dressed for dinner this evening. Two days more in this dead and fermenting⁵¹ city and my slavery would be at an end. Yes, but—irony⁵² of ironies⁵³!—I had nowhere to go to! The Morven Lodge party was breaking up. A dreadful rumour⁵⁴ as to an engagement which had been one of its accursed fruits tormented⁵⁵ me with the fresh certainty that I had not been missed, and bred in me that most desolating⁵⁶ brand of cynicism which is produced by defeat through insignificance⁵⁷. Invitations for a later date, which I had declined in July with a gratifying sense of being much in request, now rose up

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