He liked to think that the class was there, that it was always there, and that she contributed in her slight but appreciable degree to keep it up to the mark.  He couldn’t have formulated his theory of the matter, but the exuberance of the aristocracy was the advantage of trade, and everything was knit together in a richness of pattern that it was good to follow with one’s finger-tips.  It was a comfort to him to be thus assured that there were no symptoms of a drop.  What did the sounder, as she called it, nimbly worked, do but keep the ball going?

What it came to therefore for Mr. Mudge was that all enjoyments were, as might be said, inter-related, and that the more people had the more they wanted to have.  The more flirtations, as he might roughly express it, the more cheese and pickles.  He had even in his own small way been dimly struck with the linked sweetness connecting the tender passion with cheap champagne, or perhaps the other way round.  What he would have liked to say had he been able to work out his thought to the end was:  “I see, I see.  Lash them up then, lead them on, keep them going:  some of it can’t help, some time, coming our way.”  Yet he was troubled by the suspicion of subtleties on his companion’s part that spoiled the straight view.  He couldn’t understand people’s hating what they liked or liking what they hated; above all it hurt him somewhere—­for he had his private delicacies—­to see anything but money made out of his betters.  To be too enquiring, or in any other way too free, at the expense of the gentry was vaguely wrong; the only thing that was distinctly right was to be prosperous at any price.  Wasn’t it just because they were up there aloft that they were lucrative?  He concluded at any rate by saying to his young friend:  “If it’s improper for you to remain at Cocker’s, then that falls in exactly with the other reasons I’ve put before you for your removal.”

“Improper?”—­her smile became a prolonged boldness.  “My dear boy, there’s no one like you!”

“I dare say,” he laughed; “but that doesn’t help the question.”

“Well,” she returned, “I can’t give up my friends.  I’m making even more than Mrs. Jordan.”

Mr. Mudge considered.  “How much is she making?”

“Oh you dear donkey!”—­and, regardless of all the Regent’s Park, she patted his cheek.  This was the sort of moment at which she was absolutely tempted to tell him that she liked to be near Park Chambers.  There was a fascination in the idea of seeing if, on a mention of Captain Everard, he wouldn’t do what she thought he might; wouldn’t weigh against the obvious objection the still more obvious advantage.  The advantage of course could only strike him at the best as rather fantastic; but it was always to the good to keep hold when you had hold, and such an attitude would also after all involve a high tribute to her fidelity.  Of one thing she absolutely never doubted:  Mr.