quite given back to the world (only he had been
recommended to stay in his lodgings on account
of the "good air"), he met Major Carter on the
road, leaning, more for affection's sake than
support, on his son's arm. "So glad to see you,"
said Major Carter, with his airiest smile of
encouragement. "You are looking much better,
but not quite restored as yet, I can see.
Delicate about here," said the major, putting his
hand on his own face. "No wonder, I declare.
And how are you now?"

"You never came to see me," said Fermor.
"I assure you I should have been glad to have
seen you. I had no one to tell me the news of
the place, or anything."

Not in the least affected by this candid
confession of motives, Major Carter replied hastily,
"Very good of you. Shall I tell you the reason?
Somerset here knows it as well as I. I said it
to him only yesterday at breakfast. Fact was,
I knew you would be worried with visits,
perhaps with having to talk when you were not
in the humour, or have even to listen when you
were dying to be rid of us. Indeed, I passed the
other night, and saw that man that has the horse
—Crawfurd or Hanbury, whatever his name is—
coming out. After that, I felt it would scarcely
have been fair."

Fermor smiled. There was a good deal of the
gentleman about this major, after all.

"By the way," said the latter, "I knew it
would be no use asking you; yet if I did not
mention it, it would look naturally very strange.
But we are having some friends coming to us
to-morrow night, in the French way."

Fermor began to contract sensitively. Here
was this man trying to fasten an intimacy on
him. "I rarely go to parties; never, in fact,"
he said, coldly.

"So I said to Somerset this morning. In one
sense it is scarcely worth asking you. It was
for the—Prices old friends of yours—the Prices
of Bletchley."

"What! are they here?" said Ferrmor.

"Yes, they came when you were sick. Sir
Charles Honyman, the two Campbells, the
Manuels, Mr. Butler our new clergyman, and a
few more."

"If I can manage it," said Fermor, in a
ruminating sort of way, "I'll try and look in. You
see, I must take care of myself now."

"To be sure," said the major. "We'll leave
it in that way. I'm ashamed to ask a Town man
to such a thing, and yet I suspect those manufacturing
people, the Slacks, who are giving their
sumptuous ball next week—a blaze of vulgar
splendour—will not get you to go to them. Tell
me if I have guessed right? I know I am only the
merest acquaintance of yours, scarcely that,
indeed; but I am sure I have judged you right."

Fermor smiled, a little pleased at this compliment.
"Well, finery," he said, "is scarcely
my line. Give me ladies and gentlemen, and
let them give their parties in a barn, if they
like."

"Capital! very good, very good indeed!" said
the major. "Ah, Somerset," he continued,
sadly shaking his head. Which, though a little
vague, somehow did convey to Fermor that
there had been a design of taking him for a
model, but that it was now plainly hopeless to
imitate him.

"An odd thing, too, you will say," the
major went, on. "I have asked that strange
man next door to you, the stiff gaunt man—
Carlay."

"Rather a bear," said Fermor, thinking of
his own experience of him. " Yet a something
—I don't know how, but really there is
something of the gentleman about him."

"How singular!" said the major, with
admiration. "Somerset, what was our conversation
this morning?"

The youth only elevated his eye—as if the
coincidence passed all speech.

"Ah, you see! Why, I confess I am ashamed.
My first judgment was that he was no gentleman.
He wanted the air, you understand. But
since, I have heard all about him. A most
singular history. A good family gone astray, and
all that sort of thing. It is very odd. Do you
know, Captain Fermor, I envy you that instinct
of yours."

"Yes," said Fermor, with quiet superiority;
"I think I am pretty well up in that sort of
thing. I can't be taken in easily—not easy to
pass off plating on me for silver."

As he went home, Fermor owned to himself
that, that Carter was a well-bred sort of person,
and, it was easy to see, had mixed in superior
circles. He was half inclined to "look in" at
his little party.

Sauntering on, he began to think with tranquil
pleasure on what he, without affectation,
considered his "conquest," and the dramatic
scene he had passed through. Marriage was
not to be thought of. "Though," said Captain
Fermor to himself, "I suppose, one of these
days!"––that is to say, one of these days the
nuptial Juggernaut would demand its victim
and crunch his bones. He thought he would
go and see them again, and have a petite verre
of dramatic excitement. He wanted a fillip.
He looked at himself. Suitable touching and
colouring had been got in skilfully. The canvas
would do. "Poor, poor Hanbury," he said,
smiling, "how he struggled and 'flopped' when
he felt my harpoon in him!"

He was coming down one of the little streets
of the town, when there crossed it at right angles,
about a couple of hundred yards away, that very
"poor, poor Hanbury," walking with that very
Miss Violet Manuel of whom he had been thinking.
They did not see him, and passed out of view
in a moment. But he recognised at once a sort
of check shooting-coat, which had often offended
him on the score of its being in execrable
taste, and his companion—not from dress, but
from an instinct hard to describe—he knew at
once. He stopped impatiently, turned back,
then turned again, as if he were ashamed of
himself for what looked like a mortification.