For what if
Kitty should split?--so he elegantly expressed his fears--what if
the girl, of whom he had heard nothing since the day of that
deplorable scene, should break loose, and throw up the part which
she had undertaken upon such very short notice?

Decidedly, he felt that he was abundantly justified in resenting the
false position into which he had been thrust; the imposture was too
glaring. Would it not even now be well to remodel the situation with
a greater semblance of adherence to facts--to make a clean breast of
it? The crudity of the idea offended him; the process would
necessarily be wanting in art. But possibly it was not yet too late
to substitute a story which, if it caused him temporary discomfort,
would at least leave him more certain of the future, the master of
an easier, a less violently outraged conscience.

At dinner the taciturnity, bordering on moroseness, of a talker
usually so brilliant led his host to surmise that Lightmark had
ruined a picture, his hostess to conclude that he had quarrelled
with his wife. He came home early, and occupied the small hours of
the morning in forming an amended plan of campaign, of which the
first move took the shape of a somewhat voluminous letter, addressed
to Philip Rainham.

CHAPTER XXVII

Charles Sylvester was a man of a somewhat austere punctuality, and
there were few of his habits in which he took a juster pride than in
the immemorial regularity with which he distributed the first few
hours of his day. To rise at half-past seven, whatever might be the
state of the temperature or the condition of the air; to reach the
breakfast-room on the stroke of eight, and to devote half an hour to
the perusal of the _Times_ and of his more intimate correspondence--of
course, there were certain letters which he reserved until his
arrival in chambers--while he discussed a moderate breakfast which
seldom varied; to ride in the Row for another half-hour; and
finally, having delivered his horse to a groom, who met him at the
corner of Park Lane, to enter the precincts of the Temple, after a
brisk walk through Piccadilly and the Strand, shortly after
ten--these were infallible articles in his somewhat rigid creed.

Mrs. Sylvester, therefore, was struck with all the surprise which
results from an unprecedented breach of custom when, descending to
breakfast at her own laxer hour one dark morning in February, she
found her son still presiding at the table, absorbe