and down before it in a torment, observing his own demeanour
and his coat's, saying 'How d'ye do?' and 'Good-bye' to an imaginary
host, or bending affably to address some phantom lady across the
table.

When at last he descended the stairs, he felt as though he were just
escaped from a wrestling-match. He followed Cuningham into the omnibus
with nerves all on edge. He hated the notion, too, of taking an
omnibus to go and dine in St. James's Square. But Cuningham's Scotch
thriftiness scouted the proposal of a hansom.

On the way Fenwick suddenly asked his companion whether there was a
Lady Findon. Cuningham, startled by the ignorance of his _protege_,
drew out as quickly as he could _la carte du pays_.

Lady Findon, the second wife, fat, despotic, and rich, rather noisy,
and something of a character, a political hostess, a good friend, and
a still better hater; two sons, silent, good-looking and clever, one
in the brewery that provided his mother with her money, the other
in the Hussars; two daughters not long 'introduced'--one pretty--the
other bookish and rather plain; so ran the catalogue.

'I believe there is another daughter by the first
wife--married--something queer about the husband. But I've never seen
her. She doesn't often appear--Hullo--here we are.'

They alighted at the Haymarket, and as they walked down the street
Fenwick found himself in the midst of the evening whirl of the West
End. The clubs were at their busiest; men passed them in dress-suits
and overcoats like themselves, and the street was full of hansoms,
whence the faces of well-dressed women, enveloped in soft silks and
furs, looked out.

Fenwick felt himself treading a new earth. At such an hour he was
generally wending his way to a Bloomsbury eating-house, where he
dined for eighteenpence; he was a part of the striving, moneyless
student-world.

But here, from this bustling Haymarket with its gay, hurrying figures,
there breathed new forces, new passions which bewildered him. As he
was looking at the faces in the carriages, the jewels and feathers
and shining stuffs, he thought suddenly and sharply of Phoebe sitting
alone at her supper in the tiny cottage room. His heart smote him a
little. But, after all, was he not on her business as well as his own?

The door of Lord Findon's house opened before them. At sight of the
liveried servants within, Fenwick's pride asserted itself. He walked
in, head erect, as though the place belonged