interests would still attach themselves to Mayfair flung over Chalk Farm
the first radiance it had shown. Where was one's pride and one's passion
when the real way to judge of one's luck was by making not the wrong but
the right comparison? Before she had again gathered herself to go she
felt very small and cautious and thankful. "We shall have our own
house," she said, "and you must come very soon and let me show it you."

"_We_ shall have our own too," Mrs. Jordan replied; "for, don't you know?
he makes it a condition that he sleeps out?"

"A condition?"--the girl felt out of it.

"For any new position. It was on that he parted with Lord Rye. His
lordship can't meet it. So Mr. Drake has given him up."

"And all for you?"--our young woman put it as cheerfully as possible.

"For me and Lady Bradeen. Her ladyship's too glad to get him at any
price. Lord Rye, out of interest in us, has in fact quite _made_ her
take him. So, as I tell you, he will have his own establishment."

Mrs. Jordan, in the elation of it, had begun to revive; but there was
nevertheless between them rather a conscious pause--a pause in which
neither visitor nor hostess brought out a hope or an invitation. It
expressed in the last resort that, in spite of submission and sympathy,
they could now after all only look at each other across the social gulf.
They remained together as if it would be indeed their last chance, still
sitting, though awkwardly, quite close, and feeling also--and this most
unmistakeably--that there was one thing more to go into. By the time it
came to the surface, moreover, our young friend had recognised the whole
of the main truth, from which she even drew again a slight irritation. It
was not the main truth perhaps that most signified; but after her
momentary effort, her embarrassment and her tears Mrs. Jordan had begun
to sound afresh--and even without speaking--the note of a social
connexion. She hadn't really let go of it that she was marrying into
society. Well, it was a harmless compensation, and it was all the
prospective bride of Mr. Mudge had to leave with her.

CHAPTER XXVII

This young lady at last rose again, but she lingered before going. "And
has Captain Everard nothing to say to it?"

"To what, dear?"

"Why, to such questions--the domestic arrangements, things in the house."

"How can he, with any authority, when nothing in the house is his?"

"Not his?" The girl wondered, perfec