words Fenellan's mouth had to say. He called at an early
hour of the Westward tidal flow at the Insurance Office looking over the
stormy square of the first of Seamen.

CHAPTER XIII

THE LATEST OF MRS. BURMAN

After cursory remarks about the business of the Office and his friend's
contributions to periodical literature, in which he was interested for as
long as he had assurance that the safe income depending upon official
duties was not endangered by them, Victor kicked his heels to and fro.
Fenellan waited for him to lead.

'Have you seen that man, her lawyer, again?'

'I have dined with Mr. Carling:--capital claret.'

Emptiness was in the reply.

Victor curbed himself and said: 'By the way, you're not likely to have
dealings with Blathenoy. The fellow has a screw to the back of a shifty
eye; I see it at work to fix the look for business. I shall sit on the
Board of my Bank. One hears things. He lives in style at Wrensham. By the
way, Fredi has little Mab Mountney from Creckholt staying with her. You
said of little Mabsy--"Here she comes into the room all pink and white,
like a daisy." She's the daisy still; reminds us of our girl at that
age.--So, then, we come to another dead block!'

'Well, no; it's a chemist's shop, if that helps us on,' said Fenellan,
settling to a new posture in his chair. 'She's there of an afternoon for
hours.'

'You mean it's she?'

'The lady. I 'll tell you. I have it from Carling, worthy man; and
lawyers can be brought to untruss a point over a cup of claret. He's a
bit of a "Mackenzie Man," as old aunts of mine used to say at home--a Man
of Feeling. Thinks he knows the world, from having sifted and sorted a
lot of our dustbins; as the modern Realists imagine it's an exposition of
positive human nature when they've pulled down our noses to the worst
parts--if there's a worse where all are useful: but the Realism of the
dogs is to have us by the nose:--excite it and befoul it, and you're
fearfully credible! You don't read that olfactory literature. However,
friend Carling is a conciliatory carle. Three or four days of the week
the lady, he says, drives to her chemist's, and there she sits in the
shop; round the corner, as you enter; and sees all Charing in the shop
looking-glass at the back; herself a stranger spectacle, poor lady, if
Carling's picture of her is not overdone; with her fashionable no-bonnet
striding the contribution chignon on the crown, and a huge square gr