Unstable as water he could not excel nor endure, however, even in dalliance; nor persevere even when adopted as the fidus Achates of a good and beautiful woman—­the poor little weather-cock.  He was essentially weak, and weakness is worse than wickedness.  There is hope for the strong bad man.  He may become a strong good one.  Your weak man can never be that.

There came a lady to the Great Eastern Hotel where Augustus lived.  Her husband’s name, curiously enough, was Harris, and wags referred to him as the Mr. Harris, because he had never been seen—­and like Betsey Prig, they “didn’t believe there was no sich person”.  And beyond doubt she was a spanker.

Augustus would sit and eye her at meals—­and his face would grow a little less attractive.  He would think of her while he took tea with Mrs. and Mr. Dearman, assuring himself that she was certainly a stepper, a stunner, and, very probably,—­thrilling thought—­a wrong ’un.

Without the very slightest difficulty he obtained an introduction and, shortly afterwards, decided that he was a man of the world, a Decadent, a wise Hedonist who took the sweets of every day and hoped for more to-morrow.

Who but a fool or a silly greenhorn lets slip the chances of enjoyment, and loses opportunities of experiences?  There was nothing in the world, they said, to compare with War and Love.  Those who wanted it were welcome to the fighting part, he would be content with the loving role.  He would be a Dog and go on breaking hearts and collecting trophies.  What a milk-and-water young ass he had been, hanging about round good, silly, little Mrs. Dearman, denying himself champagne at dinner-parties, earning opprobrium as a teetotaller, going to bed early like a bread-and-butter flapper, and generally losing all the joys of Life!  Been behaving like a backfisch.  He read his Swinburne again, and unearthed from the bottom of a trunk some books that dealt with the decadent’s joys,—­poets of the Flesh, and prosers of the Devil, in his many weary forms.

Also he redoubled his protestations (of undying, hopeless, respectful devotion and regard) to Mrs. Dearman, until she, being a woman, therefore suspected something and became uneasy.

One afternoon he failed to put in an appearance at tea-time, though expected.  He wrote that he had had a headache.  Perhaps it was true, but, if so, it had been borne in the boudoir of the fair spanker whose husband may or may not have been named Harris.

As his absences from the society of Mrs. Dearman increased in frequency, his protestations of undying gratitude and regard for her increased in fervour.

Mrs. Dearman grew more uneasy and a little unhappy.

Could she be losing her influence for Good over the poor weak boy?  Could it be—­horrible thought—­that he was falling into the hands of some nasty woman who would flirt with him, let him smoke too many cigarettes, drink cocktails, and sit up late?  Was he going to relapse and slip back into that state of wickedness of some kind, that she vaguely understood him to have been guilty of in the unhappy past when he had possessed no guardian angel to keep his life pure, happy and sweet, as he now declared it to be?