't well know how the time slipped over; not that I was
engaged in anything that interested me,--I do not believe I have done
anything whatever,--no, nothing," muttered he, vaguely, as his wearied
eye ranged over the table.

"You are tired to-day, Herbert, and you need rest," said she, in a soft,
gentle tone. "Let this be a holiday."

"Mine are all holidays now," replied he, with an effort at gayety. Then
suddenly, with an altered voice, he added: "I ought never to have gone
there last night, Grace. I knew well what would come of it. I have no
habits, no temper, no taste, for such associates. What other thoughts
could cross me as I sat there, sipping their claret, than of the cold
poverty that awaited me at home? What pleasure to me could that short
hour of festivity be, when I knew and felt I must come back to this? And
then, the misery, the insult of that state of watchfulness, to see that
none took liberties with me on the score of my humble station."

"But surely, Herbert, there is not any one--"

"I don't know that," broke he in. "He who wears finer linen than you is
often a terrible tyrant, on no higher or better ground. If any man has
been taught that lesson, _I_ have! The world has one easy formula
for its guidance. If you be poor, you must be either incompetent or
improvident, or both; your patched coat and shabby hat are vouchers
for one or the other, and sleek success does not trouble itself to ask
which."

"The name of Herbert Laiton is a sure guarantee against such
depreciation," said she, in a voice tremulous with pride and emotion.

"So it might, if it had not earned a little extra notoriety in police
courts," said he, with a laugh of intense bitterness.

"Tell me of your dinner last night," said she, eager to withdraw him
from the vein she ever dreaded most. "Was your party a pleasant one?"

"Pleasant!--no, the very reverse of pleasant! We had discussion
instead of conversation, and in lieu of those slight differences of
sentiment which flavor talk, we had stubborn contradictions. All _my_
fault, too, Grace. I was in one of _my_ unhappy humors, and actually
forgot I was a dispensary doctor and in the presence of an ex-Treasury
Lord, with great influence and high acquaintances. You can fancy, Grace,
how boldly I dissented from all he said."

"But if you were in the right, Herbert--"

"Which is exactly what I was not; at least, I was quite as often in
the wrong. My amusement was derived from seei