coldly received by his club, he was still received by it. Had he done
something that society did not know of, something that might suddenly
obtrude itself?

Jones was brought back from his reverie with a snap. One of the
confounded waiters was making off with his half eaten ice.

"Hi," cried he. "What you doing? Bring that back."

His voice rang through the room, people turned to look. He mentally
cursed the ice and the creature who had snapped it from him, finished
it, devoured a wafer, and then, rising to his feet, left the room. It
was easier to leave than to come in, other men were leaving, and in the
general break up he felt less observed.

Downstairs he looked through glass doors into a room where men were
smoking, correct men in huge arm chairs, men with legs stretched out,
men smoking big cigars and talking politics no doubt. He wanted to
smoke, but he did not want to smoke in that place.

He went to the cloak room, fetched his hat and cane and gloves and left
the club.

Outside in Pall Mall he remembered that he had not told the waiter to
credit him with the luncheon, but a trifle like that did not bother him
now. They would be sure to put it down.

What did trouble him was the still unanswered question, "Why did that
guy commit suicide?"

Suppose Rochester had murdered some man and had committed suicide to
escape the consequences? This thought gave him a cold grue such as he
had never experienced before. For a moment he saw himself hauled before
a British Court of Justice; for a moment, and for the first time in his
life, he found himself wondering what a hangman might be like.

But Victor Jones, though a visionary sometimes in business, was at base
a business man. More used to his position now, and looking it fairly in
the face, he found that he had little to fear even if Rochester had
committed a murder. He could, if absolutely driven to it, prove his
identity. Driven to it, he could prove his life in Philadelphia, bring
witnesses and relate circumstances. His tale would all hang together,
simply because it was the truth. This inborn assurance heartened him a
lot, and, more cheerful now, he began to recognise more of the truth.
His position was very solid. Every one had accepted him. Unless he came
an awful bump over some crime committed by the late defunct, he could go
on forever as the Earl of Rochester. He did not want to go on forever as
the Earl of Rochester; he wanted to get back to the Stat