ng-room and read through three
leading articles with an occasional inkling of their
meaning. At the end of the third he became convinced of
the absurdity of trying to fix his attention upon anything,
and smoked his next Havana with his eyes upon the toe of
his boot, in profound meditation. An observant person
might have noticed that he passed his hand once or twice
lightly, mechanically, over the top of his head; but even
an observant person would hardly have connected the action
with Mr. Cardiff's latent idea that although his hair
might be tinged in a damaging way there was still a good
deal of it. Three o'clock found him standing at the club
window with his hands in his pockets, and the firm-set
lips of a man who has made up his mind, looking unseeingly
into the street. At a quarter past he was driving to the
station in a hansom, smiling at the rosette on the horse's
head, which happened to be a white one.

"There's Cardiff," said a man who saw him taking his
ticket. "More than ever the _joli garcon!_"

An hour and a half later one of the somewhat unprepossessing
set of domestics attached to the Mansion Hotel, Cheynemouth,
undertook to deliver Mr. Lawrence Cardiff's card to Miss
Bell. She didn't remember no such name among the young
ladies of the Peach Blossom Company, but she would
h'inquire. They was a ladies' drawin'-room upstairs, if
he would like to sit down. She conducted him to the
ladies' drawing-room, which boasted two pairs of torn
lace curtains, a set of dirty furniture with plush
trimmings, several lithographs of mellow Oriental scenes
somewhat undecidedly poised upon the wall, and a
marble-topped centre-table around which were disposed at
careful intervals three or four copies of last year's
illustrated papers. "You can w'yt'ere, sir," she said,
installing him as it were. "I'll let you know directly."

At the end of the corridor the girl met Elfrida herself,
who took the card with that quickening of her pulse, that
sudden commotion which had come to represent to her, in
connection with any critical personal situation, one of
the keenest possible sensations of pleasure. "You may tell
the gentleman," she said quietly, "that I will come in
a moment." Then she went back into her own room, closed
the door, and sat down on the side of the bed with a pale
face and eyes that comprehended, laughed, and were withal
a little frightened. That was what she must get rid of,
that feeling of fear, that scent o