NEVER FORGOTTEN.

PART THE SECOND.
CHAPTER XIV. TO EUSTON-SQUARE.

FERMOR had been watching restlessly from afar
off. Someway he was troubled and disturbed in
his mind on the subject of Miss Manuel. He
had an uneasy sensitiveness about being
overlooked by her, and to his ears had drifted a
whisper of the coming "little supper." Westley
Kerr—"a trading wit", a "mere professional
ladies' man" (these were the disparaging associations
in his mind)—had passed with a sort of
exulting patronage. "They want me at the
Manuel house to-night. One of the old little
suppers, you know—thought you were an intimate
there."

He strode across to her. "She cannot mean,"
he thought, "to mark me in this fashion."

"Good night," said Miss Manuel to him. " I
am going a little earlier. I have a few choice
friends to-night. You, unhappily, are disqualified.
I have rules which I can't break through."

He bit his lips and almost "bridled " with
mortification.

"No, no," she said, suddenly altering her tone.
"Look over there! I am getting fond of her.
I want you to be domestic—to be a proper
model family man—a chronicler of the beer.
You understand. Seriously I do. You have all
the virtues for home life, and I want you to
cultivate them. You will shine in that department,
whereas in our poor company of fools and triflers
you would be lost. So I tell you, candidly, I
am not going to ask you."

There was a surprising mixture of contempt,
badinage, and haughtiness, in the way she
spoke these words. Fermor was altogether
overpowered, and could hardly reply.

"O, as you please," he said; "you have, of
course, the right to do so."

"Of course I have," she said, laughing. "Now
go, and let me see you in a conjugal light. It
will be a treat. I must gather my little flock
together, now. Where's Mr. Romaine?"

Mr. Romaine had just left Mrs. Fermor,
having brought her up from Lord Putnenham's
slender restoratives. She had been very earnest,
and prettily earnest, in her work of conversion,
and was quite elated with her progress.

For that whole evening almost she had
purposely "kept Mr. Romaine to herself," and
he had not even spoken to the blonde bride.
She had indeed aided him in his brave struggle.
Fermor came up to her chafing and disgusted.
"We must come away," he said, somewhat
roughly. "We have had quite enough of this
place. I am sure you can't want to stay longer."

This tone jarred on Mrs. Fermor in her present
missionary excitement. She was beginning to
be deeply hurt by her husband's late neglect.
She could not help answering,

"You have not helped to make it agreeable to
me." (This was in the carriage going home.)

"I suppose," he answered, "you will now go
straight to your father, and bring me to judgment
before him. We always had tell-tales at
school."

This was the key-note—how the rest of the air
was played may be conceived.

They entered their house in silence. She went
up-stairs without a word; he was turning into
his study for a moody and hopeless meditation,
almost raging against that cold heartless woman,
whom he had now finally done with, when a page
came to the door and handed him a note. It ran:

"Can you forgive me? I have been worried
the whole night, and took it into my. head to try
you. You came out of it angelically. It is all my
own helplessness, and I suppose I do not know
how to treat you. Of course you would not
come now. I have no right to expect it: and
yet—there is a place at the round table.

"P. M."

Hesitating, pleased, angry, fretful, elated,
doubtful, Fermor at last went forth slowly, got
into a cab, and drove away to Alfred-place.

Mrs.Wrigley had sat and suffered through Lord
Putnenham's musical party. Major Carter had
been at her feet, figuratively, the whole night.
He had talked to her of his finer friends, and the
finer houses where he was intimate. All her
life—which had been strongly impregnated with
the City—she had panted and thirsted after the
choice hunting-grounds of society. She listened
with curiosity and an oily glance of tenderness.
The major was rapidly drawing near to the
golden gates of proposal, when he would knock
and show his papers, and beg that he might be
allowed to pass.