ose filthy blacks. The law will call
that swindling! You will find yourself in the dock, my friend, in the
prisoners' dock, I say! Come, how do you like that, Mr. Scarlett Trent?
If you leave this room with him, you are a ruined man. I shall see to
it."

Trent swung him out of the way--a single contemptuous turn of the wrist,
and Da Souza reeled against the mantelpiece. He held out his hand to
Monty and they left the room together.

CHAPTER XXXVII

"From a conversational point of view," Lady Tresham remarked, "our guest
to-night seems scarcely likely to distinguish himself."

Ernestine looked over her fan across the drawing-room.

"I have never seen such an alteration in a man," she said, "in so short
a time. This morning he amazed me. He knew the right people and did the
right things--carried himself too like a man who is sure of himself.
To-night he is simply a booby."

"Perhaps it is his evening clothes," Lady Tresham remarked, "they take
some getting used to, I believe."

"This morning," Ernestine said, "he had passed that stage altogether.
This is, I suppose, a relapse! Such a nuisance for you!"

Lady Tresham rose and smiled sweetly at the man who was taking her in.

"Well, he is to be your charge, so I hope you may find him more amusing
than he looks," she answered.

It was an early dinner, to be followed by a visit to a popular theatre.
A few hours ago Trent was looking forward to his evening with the
keenest pleasure--now he was dazed--he could not readjust his point of
view to the new conditions. He knew very well that it was his wealth,
and his wealth only, which had brought him as an equal amongst these
people, all, so far as education and social breeding was concerned, of
so entirely a different sphere. He looked around the table. What would
they say if they knew? He would be thrust out as an interloper. Opposite
to him was a Peer who was even then engaged in threading the meshes of
the Bankruptcy Court, what did they care for that?--not a whit! He was
of their order though he was a beggar. But as regards himself, he was
fully conscious of the difference. The measure of his wealth was the
measure of his standing amongst them. Without it he would be thrust
forth--he could make no claim to association with them. The thought
filled him with a slow, bitter anger. He sent away his soup untasted,
and he could not find heart to speak to the girl who had been the
will-o'-the-wisp leading him into t