“Is it a novel?”

“A novel! no!” cried John Saltram, with a wry face; “it is the romance of reality I deal with.  My book is a Life of Jonathan Swift.  He was always a favourite study of mine, you know, that brilliant, unprincipled, intolerant, cynical, irresistible, miserable man.  Scott’s biography seems to me to give but a tame picture, and others are only sketches.  Mine will be a pre-Raphaelite study—­faithful as a photograph, careful as a miniature on ivory, and life-size.”

“I trust it will bring you fame and money when the time comes,” answered Gilbert.  “And how about Mrs. Branston?  Is she as charming as ever?”

“A little more so, if possible.  Poor old Michael Branston is dead—­went off the hooks rather suddenly about a month ago.  The widow looks amazingly pretty in her weeds.”

“And you will marry her, I suppose, Jack, as soon as her mourning is over?”

“Well, yes; it is on the cards,” John Saltram said, in an indifferent tone.

“Why, how you say that!  Is there any doubt as to the lady’s fortune?”

“O no; that is all square enough.  Michael Branston’s will was in the Illustrated London News; the personalty sworn under a hundred and twenty thousand,—­all left to the widow,—­besides real property—­a house in Cavendish Square, the villa at Maidenhead, and a place near Leamington.”

“It would be a splendid match for you, Jack.”

“Splendid, of course.  An unprecedented stroke of luck for such a fellow as I. Yet I doubt very much if I am quite the man for that sort of life.  I should be apt to fancy it a kind of gilded slavery, I think, Gil, and there would be some danger of my kicking off the chains.”

“But you like Mrs. Branston, don’t you, Jack?”

“Like her?  Yes, I like her too well to deceive her.  And she would expect devoted affection from a second husband.  She is full of romantic ideas, school-girl theories of life which she was obliged to nip in the bud when she went to the altar with old Branston, but which have burst into flower now that she is free.”

“Have you seen her often since her husband’s death?”

“Only twice;—­once immediately after the funeral, and again yesterday.  She is living in Cavendish Square just now.”

“I hope you will marry her.  I should like to see you safe in smooth water, and with some purpose in life.  I should like to see you turn your back upon the loneliness of these dreary chambers.”

“They are not very brilliant, are they?  I don’t know how many generations of briefless barristers these chairs and tables have served.  The rooms have an atmosphere of failure; but they suit me very well.  I am not always here, you know.  I spend a good deal of my time in the country.”

“Whereabouts?”

“Sometimes in one direction, sometimes in another; wherever my truant fancy leads me.  I prefer such spots as are most remote from the haunts of men, unknown to cockneys; and so long as there is a river within reach of my lodging, I can make myself tolerably happy with a punt and a fishing-rod, and contrive to forget my cares.”