double fringe over his forehead again, where the hairdresser had cut it
into a pattern which he had assured him was in the height of fashion,
but only with the result of making him look like butcher turned
betting-man. "Yes, fond of it," he said again, "and of course I can get
plenty with fellows, but--er--ladies' society is what I like."

James Poynter directed at Richmond a smiling leer, one which had proved
very successful at more than one metropolitan bar, where he had paved
the way for its success with gifts of flowers and a cheap ring or two;
but it was utterly lost here, for its intended recipient was looking
another way, and as it faded from its inventor's face there was a blank,
inane expression left, bordering upon the grotesque.

"You should go more into ladies' society, then, Mr Poynter, as soon as
your health permits," said Richmond, with provoking coolness.

"Oh, I'm not ill," he said hastily; and his forehead grew damp as he
floundered about, looking fishy now about the eyes and mouth, which
opened and shut at intervals, as if to give passage to words which never
came. "Felt I was--er--little out of sorts, you know, and thought I'd
see the doctor. Let's see, I said so before, didn't I?"

"Yes, I think you did, Mr Poynter. Here is my father."

There was a slight cough just then, the door opened, and the doctor
entered, his bland, aristocratic presence contrasting broadly with that
of his patient.

"Ah, Poynter," he said, "good-morning. Don't go, my dear; Mr Poynter
will come into my consulting-room, I daresay."

"Yes, of course," cried the patient, shaking hands, and forgetting to
leave off. "I shall--shall you?--good-morning, Miss Chartley."

He released the doctor's hand, to turn and shake Richmond's which he
pressed desperately, and then followed the bland, calm, stately doctor
out of the room, when he caught up his hat savagely and ground his teeth
in the dark passage.

"I feel just like a fool when I'm with her!" he said to himself. "I
never feel so anywhere else. And I ain't a fool. I should just like to
see the man who would say I was."

The doctor led the way through the glazed door into the dim surgery,
with its rows of bottles, and stoppered glass jars containing unpleasant
looking specimens preserved in spirits, all carefully labelled and
inscribed in the doctor's own neat hand, but grown yellow with time; and
as he closed the door after his patient, the latter's nostrils di