THE WINDOW 39Q. He reached Q. Very few people in the wholeof England ever reach Q. Here, stopping for onemoment by the stone urn which held the geraniums,he saw, but now far far away, like children pickingup shells, divinely innocent and occupied with littletrifles at their feet and somehow entirely defencelessagainst a doom which he perceived, his wife and son,together, in the window. They needed his protec-tion; he gave it them. But after Q? What comesnext? After Q there are a number of letters the lastof which is scarcely visible to mortal eyes, but glim-mers red in the distance. Z is only reached once byone man in a generation. Still, if he could reach R itwould be something. Here at least was Q. He dughis heels in at Q. Q he was sure of. Q he could de-monstrate. If Q then is Q—R—Here he knockedhis pipe out, with two or three resonant taps on theram's horn which made the handle of the urn, andproceeded. "Then R . . .’ He braced himself.He clenched himself.Qualities that would have saved a ship’s companyexposed on a broiling sea with six biscuits and a flaskof water—endurance and justice, foresight, devotion,skill, came to his help. R is then—what is R?A shutter, like the leathern eyelid of a lizard, flick-ered over the intensity of his gaze and obscured theletter R. In that flash of darkness he heard peoplesaying—he was a failure—that R was beyond him.He would never reach R. On to R once more. R——Qualities that in a desolate expedition across theicy solitudes of the Polar region would have madehim the leader, the guide, the counsellor, whosetemper, neither sanguine nor despondent, surveys
