Alec pulled but the grip on his arm was firm, and he was held fast by the man in the fine pressed suit and starched collar. He was still breathing heavily. He had thought he would be able to outrun but Mr. Durham had been determined. And now he was speaking in a smelly side alley with a gentleman - his former employer - who probably still did not know his first name.

"You realize I left my cab in the street, and shall probably miss my appointment, having chosen to spend my time running the streets after you?"

"I don't know anything about all that, sir."

If Maurice were here he could talk to Mr. Durham. But he was not here. It was Alec who had been seen by Mr. Durham. Now pinned in a firm grip Alec dared not push away, and listened instead to a steady stream of well phrased accusations. Alec could sense but hardly respond to Mr. Durham's frustrations. Half his words made no sense - the man seemed to have thought himself into a proper muddle, unable to get his thoughts into a straight line. Maurice would do that sometimes, as well - Alec supposed it was an affliction of the upper classes.

"You are the same Scudder who was in my employ until a year ago? Answer me."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, where is he then? Don't look at me that way, you know very well who I mean," and then, pulling Alec closer, close enough to smell the scents and pomades on the other man's hair and skin. "Are you living together then?"

"I'd rather not say, sir."

Somewhere a carriage raddled by, voices from the street reaching them as a distant hum. "Do you know who I am, Scudder?"

"Yes. You are Mr. Durham."

"Do you know what I am to Hall?"

Of course Alec knew. Mr. Durham had been Maurice's first love, his great love, and Alec could hardly help the anger and yes, jealousy, that curled in his stomach whenever he thought of Mr. Durham, usually an anger dampened by remoteness and removal but now sharpened by the iron grip on his arm.

But Alec knew also that how much he knew and how much he could say aloud, here, in the street were two very different species of animal.

"You are his friend from school. I met him at your house," and then, after a pause that weighed heavy with the recognition neither of them were satisfied with this reply, Alec added, "I know that you abandoned him."

Mr. Durham's face flickered, something that might be anger flashing beneath the cool gentlemanly veneer.

"He abandoned us when he took up with you."

Alec would not allow Mr. Durham to talk like he had some ownership of Maurice Alec did not, some stake in Maurice Alec did not share. "Maurice made his own decisions, sir. I am sure he would tell you so."

"He is Maurice to you?"

"Yes. And to him I am Alec."

Mr. Durham stood, undoubtedly thinking some fancy thoughts and tying himself in knots, and he would try to wrap Alec in those tangles as well. Alec pulled on arm, but Mr. Durham's grip only tightened. They were not done yet, though Mr. Durham had ceased talking. Alec could not guess what the man was thinking. Anger, disgust, condescension - anything and everything might be flickering beneath that cool surface. Alec could not read him. Even in the very beginning, Maurice had never seemed as remote as Mr. Durham.

"You know that his family are quite concerned for him," Mr. Durham said at last. Family, alright, we will talk about family. "I receive letters from his sisters often, and you understand it is difficult for me to have nothing to tell them."

"I would say that is your own doing, sir."

"You understand it is difficult for me not to know where he is. What he is doing."

"I shouldn't think you would care as much as that. From what Maurice said."

Mr. Durham's grip tightened briefly. "And what has Maurice said?"

"He has said he was in love with you but you did not love him."

"Maurice said that? Rather crude phrasing."

"The phrasing is my own, sir."

"Of course."

Mr. Durham was silent again. This was probably the longest any gentleman save Maurice had focused on him for so long, and Alec was finding he did not like the experience. Mr. Durham seemed to want things from him there was no way for Alec to deliver, and the feeling of failing to please this gentleman who had been his employer - whatever he had also been to Maurice - made him feel deeply uneasy. Even though he shouldn't. He owed this man nothing. Should be angry at the way he treated Maurice, made him sad and frustrated for so long. But somehow it was not anger he felt.

"I don't suppose Maurice has spoken in particular depth or detail about the genesis of our friendship. It's long standing nature, or my own attempts to retain the connection, even after he told me of his, entanglement, with you. I would still like to help him. If you care about him, I would expect you to allow me to do so."

"With respect, sir, we don't need-"

"Don't misunderstand me, Scudder," and there had returned to Mr. Durham's voice a hardness that made Alec straighten his spine. "There is no "we" in what I am saying - I should expect you to disappear. And I would be willing to pay to assure this occurrence."

Any softening of feeling Alec had been experiencing towards Mr. Durham died in an instant.

"I don't need your money."

Mr. Durham's eyes scanned him - no doubt noting the rough cut of his clothes, the holes in his jacket and trousers, the dirt on his boots, and Alec felt the hardening of anger in his chest, like a cooling lump of molten steel.

"Quite. Then you will do it for Maurice's own benefit. You know he has a future, a position he could take. It is not too late for him to return."

"I am not going to leave him so long as he wants me to stay," Alec said. "You didn't want him."

"You know nothing about what I want, Scudder," Mr. Durham said, and for the first time there was open anger in his tone. Alec responded to the anger and wanted more. He didn't like this talking. He didn't like this feeling of disapproval, the undercurrent of disgust. He wanted Mr. Durham to shout at him or let him go, not keep them here in this tableau. He thought he knew how to get himself released.

"I know you didn't want to sleep with him. Sir." Mr. Durham's eyes widened, and he did drop his hand and curled his nose as though Alec's skin had started emitting a foul order. Alec didn't care. He rotated his shoulder, glad to reclaim his arm as his own. He could have left then but found he had more to say, and felt freer now he was no longer physically restrained. "Well I did want to, sir, and I do. And you can't have him back."

"That is not the issue-"

"With respect, sir, it is. You may have hidden it in your fancy words, and I am not good with those. But I am good for Maurice, he has said so."

"You are good for Maurice? You have no idea what you are talking about," Mr. Durham's voice was now unquestionably heated with anger and Alec considered that a victory. "I suppose it would be too much to expect you to be able to recognize that love - and I did love him - that love can exist above these baser, passions, to which you have enticed him. I do not even know why I am bothering to have this conversation with you. It is clearly beyond your comprehension. No fault of your own, though I would have hoped Maurice would require a bit more from his companions. However -" and now Alec felt his heart racing as it would before entering a fight, though he felt the answering hum of anger from the other man. "I will tell you, Scudder, you will inform me of Maurice's location or I will be forced to get the police involved."

"There will be no need for that." They both turned to see Maurice in the doorway. He was dressed lightly, in undershirt and pants, and had clearly come down with the intent of looking for Alec's return. He regarded them both now coolly. "The police, Clive, truly? I hope you did not mean it."

"Maurice-" Alec watched Mr. Durham's eyes flicker over Maurice's body; looking, Alec knew, as good as it ever had, with his work at the gymnasium increased to many hours daily. "Of course I would have been circumspect in my report. I would not have told them anything unnecessary."

"Unnecessary? There is much in all this that is unnecessary it seems to me, Clive."

Clive. Alec's skin crawled. There was in their exchange a familiarity that twisted in Alec's gut. Alec wanted Maurice to tell Mr. Durham to leave, preferably with some show of the passionate anger that Maurice had displayed couple of times they had discussed the topic of Clive Durham. But there was nothing, just a silence that stretched until Mr. Durham spoke.

"You should really write your family." Family again.

"I have written them. I have told them not to look for me."

Alec felt a flare of the possessive pride. He supposed he should feel bad that Maurice had been forced to sacrifice his family - but he didn't. They had each other. That was all they had, and all they needed.

But here was Clive Durham, crashed in. And Maurice was not telling him to leave.

No, Maurice was smiling at him. And it was the smile that Alec coveted whenever he saw it directed at himself - a smile tinged with comfort, and a species of respect. Alec knew Maurice hated the weakness that had prevented Mr. Durham from loving him fully, but knew also Maurice respected the intellect and learning Mr. Durham projected like the fresh scent of the pomades in his hair. Sweet. Artificial.

Alec knew this because he often saw those flashes of disappointment, when a topic was broached about which Alec had no knowledge, a reference unknown, a quote unmemorized. At those moments the unsaid overlay of Clive would have known would rise like smoke between them, dispersed later by laughter and wrestling and sex, but never fully expelled.

"You are living here?" Mr. Durham said finally, and there in the words was the distaste Alec would have expected from a gentleman regarding their walkup. Maurice did not seem to mind.

"Yes."

"Are you going to invite me up?"

Alec saw the moment of Maurice's surprise, then the moment it was repressed. He turned and began up the steps and Mr. Durham followed. Alec brought up the rear, watching Mr. Durham's shoulders move beneath his fine jacket. He had a great overcoat hung over his arm, and a fine watch at his belt. Their neighbors would think they were being visited by a barrister, come to tell them of some fine inheritance, most like.

But that would not be what was discussed, Alec felt. Because in the relative privacy of their room he suspected the topic could turn to what

Mr. Durham had made plain that he wanted Maurice back, but in what capacity? What would Mr. Durham do to get Maurice back? Alec's fears were flared with the knowledge there was nothing he would not do or pledge to get Maurice as his own. He trusted Maurice's professions of love, trusted too that Maurice this morning had no intention or wish to alter their relationship.

But he knew too that Maurice had loved Clive Durham with a passion that bordered on obsession, and that Durham had felt something for Maurice in return. And Durham could return that position which Maurice had abandoned, and that more than anything made Alec fearful. For now Maurice had tested what it was to live as not a gentleman, he might justifiably wish to return back. It was this more than anything that shook Alec to the core.

So it was with a species of apprehension as yet unknown to him that Alec climbed the stairs behind Mr. Durham, ready to hear the man attempt to take his lover from him, and unsure whether he would be able to generate words honeyed enough to induce Maurice to stay.