age these visitings. He had
tried hard to persuade himself that he was glad for Flossie's sake
when Miss Harden went away; when, whatever there had been between
Rickets and the lady, it had come to nothing; when the wedding day
remained fixed, immovably fixed. But he had not been glad at all. On
the contrary he had suffered horribly, and had felt the subsequent
delay as a cruel prolongation of his agony. In the irony of destiny,
shortly before the fatal twenty-fifth, Mr. Spinks had been made
partner in his uncle's business, and was now enjoying an income
superior to Rickman's not only in amount but in security. If anything
could have added to his dejection it was that. His one consolation
hitherto had been that after all, if Rickman did marry Flossie, as
_he_ was not in a position to marry her, it came to the same thing in
the long run. Now he saw himself cut off from that source of comfort
by a solid four hundred a year with prospects of a rise. He could
forego the obviously impossible; but in that rosy dawn of incarnation
his dream appeared more than ever desirable. Whenever Mr. Spinks's
imagination encountered the idea of marriage it had tried to look
another way. Marriage remote and unattainable left Mr. Spinks's
imagination in comparative peace; but brought within the bounds of
possibility its appeal was simply maddening. And now, bringing it
nearer still, so near that it was impossible to look another way,
there came these disturbing suggestions of a misunderstanding between
Rickman and his Beaver. The boarding-house knew nothing but that the
wedding was put off because Rickman was in difficulties and could not
afford to marry at the moment. Spinks would have accepted this
explanation as sufficient if it had not been for the peculiar
behaviour of Rickman, and the very mysterious and agitating change in
Flossie's manner. Old Rickets had returned to his awful solitude. He
absented himself entirely from the dinner-table. When you met him on
the stairs he was incommunicative and gloomy; and whatever you asked
him to do he was too busy to do it. His sole attention to poor Flossie
was to take her for an occasional airing in the Park on Sunday
afternoons. Spinks had come across them there walking sadly side by
side. Flossie for propriety's sake would be making a little
conversation as he went by; but Rickman had always the shut mouth and
steady eyes of invincible determination.

What was it that Razors was so determined