“Doing pretty well?”

“Yes, I think I may say I am.  Uphill work, of course, but still—­”

“And where are you living?”

Chetwynd hesitated.

“Close by here,” he replied the next moment.  “Come home with me now, if you have nothing better to do, and allow me to present my wife to you.”

And they walked on side by side.

“You have dined?  I am afraid—­”

“My dear fellow, I have this moment left the club.”

Dr. Chetwynd put his latch-key into the lock and ushered his friend upstairs to his wife’s pretty drawing-room.

But Bella was not there; and finding that she was not in her bedroom, or in fact in the house at all, he rang the bell and questioned the maid as to when her mistress had gone out and if she knew when she would be likely to return.

“No, sir, that I’m sure I don’t.  My mistress never said anything to me.”

“Well, she is not likely to be away long,” remarked the doctor philosophically.  “Have a cigar, Meynell.”

“Thanks, no.  Your wife spoils you, Jack, if she allows you to smoke in her pretty little room.”

“Oh, she will not mind; but we will go down to my den shortly.  You see, Meynell, I’m a bit of a Bohemian, although I like to preserve the customs of the civilised world all the same, to a certain extent.  But my little wife—­well—­she—­she—­I daresay you may have heard she was on the stage before I married her.”

“No, indeed I hadn’t.”  Gus Meynell looked a good deal surprised.

“Well, I mention it because perhaps she is not quite like the ordinary run of women.”

Meynell could no longer be blind to the want of ease in his host’s manner, and in his turn became proportionately uncomfortable.

“Hang it all!  A man marries to please himself,” he said awkwardly.

“She is just the dearest girl in the world,” continued Jack Chetwynd, with warmth.  “I’m not only fond of her, but proud of her too, but you know—­”

“I perfectly understand what you mean.  To my idea unconventionality is the most charming thing a woman can have.  I hate the bride manufactured out of the schoolgirl.  The oppressive resemblance between most of our friends’ wives is one of the safe-guards of society.”

“What is that?” Chetwynd broke in upon his friend’s speech with a nervous start and exclamation.  The hall door opened with a loud bang and a woman’s noisy laugh could be heard as a pelter of high-heeled shoes came along the tesselated hall and then the vision of a pretty girl at the doorway, accompanied by a man and two women.

“Hallo, Jack!  You are home before me, then.”

“Bella, my dear, I must introduce you to an old friend of mine:  Meynell, my wife.”

Bella bowed a little coldly.

“My sister, Mr. Meynell,” she said, seeing that the doctor was looking straight over Saidie’s head.  “My sister, Miss Saidie Blackall; daresay you have seen her from the front before.”  Then, looking towards the open door, “Come in, come in.  Jack, I think you have already met Mr. and Mrs. Doss.”