has to accept!” He moved on again down Chequers Street, observing, as he did so, however, that a small single leaf still lay on the pavement. His consciousness of this leaf worried his mind after he had taken only a few steps. He endowed it⁠—thinking to himself, “I believe it’s a myrtle-leaf”⁠—with nerves like his own. He thought of it as being separated from its companions and doomed to be trodden underfoot alone. “Damn my superstition!” he muttered, and forced himself to walk on. But then he thought, “They’ll be treading on it just at the time I’m talking to Urquhart!” This brought him to a standstill, while indecision took him by the throat. He slipped his fingers into his waistcoat-pocket. There was Urquhart’s cheque! After that unthinkable scene with Gerda he had taken it from under the stomach of Mukalog.

“How can I expect the gods to give me luck,” he said to himself, “when I leave living things to be trodden underfoot?” He stood quite still now, paralyzed by as much hesitation over this leaf as if the leaf had been Gerda herself.