d Mr.
Brumley could not help thinking he had made a tremendous ass of himself
in that ticket clerk dispute....

At Hammersmith they got out, two quite penniless travellers, and after
some anxious moments found a taxi. It took them to Putney Hill. Lady
Harman descended at the outer gates of her home and walked up the drive
in the darkness while Mr. Brumley went on to his club and solvency
again. It was five minutes past eight when he entered the hall of his
club....

Sec.6

It had been Lady Harman's original intention to come home before four,
to have tea with her mother and to inform her husband when he returned
from the city of her entirely dignified and correct disobedience to his
absurd prohibitions. Then he would have bullied at a disadvantage, she
would have announced her intention of dining with Lady Viping and making
the various calls and expeditions for which she had arranged and all
would have gone well. But you see how far accident and a spirit of
enterprise may take a lady from so worthy a plan, and when at last she
returned to the Victorian baronial home in Putney it was very nearly
eight and the house blazed with crisis from pantry to nursery. Even the
elder three little girls, who were accustomed to be kissed goodnight by
their "boofer muvver," were still awake and--catching the subtle
influence of the atmosphere of dismay about them--in tears. The very
under-housemaids were saying: "Where _ever_ can her ladyship 'ave got
to?"

Sir Isaac had come home that day at an unusually early hour and with a
peculiar pinched expression that filled even Snagsby with apprehensive
alertness. Sir Isaac had in fact returned in a state of quite unwonted
venom. He had come home early because he wished to vent it upon Ellen,
and her absence filled him with something of that sensation one has when
one puts out a foot for the floor and instead a step drops one down--it
seems abysmally.

"But where's she gone, Snagsby?"

"Her ladyship _said_ to lunch, Sir Isaac," said Snagsby.

"Good gracious! Where?"

"Her ladyship didn't _say_, Sir Isaac."

"But where? Where the devil----?"

"I have--'ave no means whatever of knowing, Sir Isaac."

He had a defensive inspiration.

"Perhaps Mrs. Sawbridge, Sir Isaac...."

Mrs. Sawbridge was enjoying the sunshine upon the lawn. She sat in the
most comfortable garden chair, held a white sunshade overhead, had the
last new novel by Mrs. Humphry Ward upon her lap, and was engage