covered with Arnold's minute handwriting, "Then you have done with pasty
compromises--you have gone over to the Jesuits. I congratulate you," and
readdressed the envelope to College Street. The brown tide of the crowd
brought him an instant messenger, and he stood in the doorway for a
moment afterwards frowning upon the yellow turbans that swung along
in the sunlight against the white wall opposite, across the narrow
commercial road. The flame of his indignation set forth his features
with definiteness and relief, consuming altogether the soft amused
well-being which was nearly always there. His lips set themselves
together, and Mrs. Sand would have been encouraged in any scheme of
practical utility by the lines that came about his mouth. A brother
in finance of some astuteness, who saw him scramble into his gharry,
divined that with regard to a weighty matter in jute mill shares
pending, Lindsay had decided upon a coup, and made his arrangements
accordingly. He also went upon his way with a fresh impression of
Lindsay's undeniable good looks, as sometimes in a coin new from
the mint one is struck with the beauty of a die dulled by use and
familiarity.

Stephen Arnold, receiving his answer, composed himself to feel distress,
but when he had read it, that emotion was lightened in him by another
sentiment.

"A community admirable in many ways," he murmured, refolding the page.
"Does he think he is insulting me?"

Whatever degree of influence, Jesuitical or other, Lindsay was inclined
to concede to Stephen's intermediary, he was compelled to recognise
without delay that Captain Filbert, in the exercise of her profession,
had not neglected to acquire a knowledge of defensive operations. She
retired effectively, the quarters in Crooked Lane became her fortified
retreat, whence she issued only under escort and upon service strictly
obligatory. Succour from Arnold doubtless reached her by the post; and
Lindsay felt it an anomaly in military tactics that the same agency
should bring back upon him with a horrid recoil the letters with which
he strove to assault her position. Nor could Alicia induce any sortie
to Middleton Street. Her notes of invitation to quiet teas and luncheons
were answered on blue-lined paper, the pen dipped in reticence and the
palest ink, always with the negative of a formal excuse. They loosed the
burden of her complicity from Miss Livingstone's shoulders, these notes
which bore so much the atmosphere