A man will do much for a woman who is his friend, but to be suspected of being a brewer’s traveler, to have to push one’s way into a strange drawing-room, to have to confront the awful stare of the inmates, and then to have to deliver a message which they will probably consider as the very extreme of audacious and meddling impertinence!  The prospect was not pleasant, and yet Ingram, as he sat and thought over it that evening, finally resolved to encounter all these dangers and wounds.  He could help Sheila in no other way.  He was banished from her house.  Perhaps he might induce this American girl to release her captive and give Lavender back to his own wife.  What were a few twinges of one’s self-respect, or risks of a humiliating failure, compared with the possibility of befriending Sheila in some small way?

Next morning he went early in to Whitehall, and about one o’clock in the forenoon started off for Holland Park.  He wore a tall hat, a black frock-coat and yellow kid gloves.  He went in a hansom, so that the person who opened the door should know that he was not a brewer’s traveler.  In this wise he reached Mrs. Kavanagh’s house, which Lavender had frequently pointed out to him in passing, about half-past one, and with some internal tremors, but much outward calmness, went up the broad stone steps.

A small boy in buttons opened the door.

“Is Mrs. Lorraine at home?”

“Yes, sir,” said the boy.

It was the simplest thing in the world.  In a couple of seconds he found himself in a big drawing-room, and the youth had taken his card up stairs.  Ingram was not very sure whether his success, so far, was due to the hansom, or to his tall hat, or to a silver-headed cane which his grandfather had brought home from India.  However, here he was in the house, just like the hero of one of those fine old farces of our youth, who jumps from the street into a strange drawing-room, flirts with the maid, hides behind a screen, confronts the master, and marries his daughter, all in half an hour, the most exacting unities of time and place being faithfully observed.

Presently the door was opened, and a young lady, pale and calm and sweet of face, approached him, and not only bowed to him, but held out her hand.

“I have much pleasure in making your acquaintance, Mr. Ingram,” she said, gently and somewhat slowly.  “Mr. Lavender has frequently promised to bring you to see us, for he has spoken to us so much about you that we had begun to think we already knew you.  Will you come with me up stairs, that I may introduce you to mamma?”

Ingram had come prepared to state harsh truths bluntly, and was ready to meet any sort of anger or opposition with a perfect frankness of intention.  But he certainly had not come prepared to find the smart-tongued and fascinating American widow, of whom he had heard so much, a quiet, self-possessed and gracious young lady, of singularly winning manners and clear and resolutely honest eyes.  Had Lavender been quite accurate, or even conscientious, in his garrulous talk about Mrs. Lorraine?