“How do you know?”

“Bah!” said the boy impatiently.  “Cannot one see it?  You have a pretty wife—­much prettier than any one you would see at a ball at Mrs. Kavanagh’s—­and you leave her at home, and you go to the ball to amuse yourself.”

This boy, Ingram perceived, was getting to see too clearly how matters stood.  He bade him go and play some music, having first admonished him gravely about the necessity of keeping some watch and ward over his tongue.  Then the pipe was re-lit, and a fury of sound arose at the other end of the room.

So Lavender, forgetful of the true-hearted girl who loved him, forgetful of his own generous instincts, forgetful of the future that his fine abilities promised, was still dangling after this alien woman, and Sheila was left at home, with her troubles and piteous yearnings and fancies as her only companions?  Once upon a time Ingram could have gone straight up to him and admonished him, and driven him to amend his ways.  But now that was impossible.

What was still possible?  One wild project occurred to him for a moment, but he laughed at it and dismissed it.  It was that he should go boldly to Mrs. Lorraine herself, ask her plainly if she knew what cruel injury she was doing to this young wife, and force her to turn Lavender adrift.  But what enterprise of the days of old romance could be compared with this mad proposal?  To ride up to a castle, blow a trumpet, and announce that unless a certain lady were released forthwith death and destruction would begin,—­all that was simple enough, easy and according to rule; but to go into a lady’s drawing-room without an introduction, and request her to stop a certain flirtation,—­that was a much more awful undertaking.  But Ingram could not altogether dismiss this notion from his head.  Mosenberg went on playing—­no longer his practicing-pieces, but all manner of airs which he knew Ingram liked—­while the small sallow man with the brown beard lay in his easy-chair and smoked his pipe, and gazed attentively at his toes on the fender.

“You know Mrs. Kavanagh and her daughter, don’t you, Mosenberg?” he said during an interval in the music.

“Not much,” said the boy.  “They were in England only a little while before I went to Leipsic.”

“I should like to know them.”

“That is very easy.  Mr. Lavender will introduce you to them:  Mrs. Lavender said he went there very much.”

“What would they do, do you think, if I went up and asked to see them?”

“The servant would ask if it was about beer or coals that you called.”