Possibly Mrs. Dacres’ velvety brown eyes would have opened a trifle wider could she have followed the footsteps of her devoted admirer.  Teddy, wise in his generation, made the provision of a consolation a matter of principle; therefore when the door closed behind him at one house, he quickly hailed a hansom which should take him to another, where he would not only be welcomed, but instead of having to beg for a dinner he would be begged to eat one.  Matters turned out as he premised, and he only picked up his grievance against Nina the next day when he was urging her that they should go to his rooms and have tea.

When this proposition was started Teddy wasn’t particularly keen as to whether she came or whether she did not; but, ill luck would have it, Nina chose that very opportunity for asserting her dignity—­and after that the question of the tea became a question of who should be conqueror.

“If I give in again, I’ll be hanged,” said Teddy to himself, and he brought to bear the various resources he was master of with such effect that Nina, driven into a corner, was fairly beaten and confessed to herself that it served her right—­“he’s been allowed to go too far, and this is the upshot of it.”

She made these reflections however with a face that told no tales, stepped into a hansom with a pretty air of being overruled by a will stronger than her own, and only insisted on keeping up her ungainly sized parasol because “the sun in one’s eyes is so disagreeable.”

Now, as chance would have it, instead of fishing in the country, Captain Rowley Dacres was spending that day in London.  Circumstances had brought him to town early in the morning; but, to his discredit do I tell it, he hated shopping, and hadn’t Nina told him in every letter she sent that she was with the dressmaker every hour of the day?  If he went home he should have to go with her there, or to some other confounded place, for so long as a shop was near, Nina would be safe to have something to buy in it.  During those few months they were engaged, what a purgatory he had gone trough.  He was a lover then—­he was a husband now, and he whistled the air of a popular tune known by the name of “Not for Joe.”

The first few bars had but just escaped him, when who should he stumble across but an old chum, Nick Walcot, who, hearing that up to seven o’clock—­when he was going to pop in upon Nina—­Rowley had nothing to do, gave a mysterious wink of his eye saying, “All right, old fellow; I’m going somewhere, and I’ll take you.”

The somewhere proved to be a small bijou residence in the neighbourhood of Thurloe Square; and, arrived at the door, it suddenly struck Rowley who lived there.

“Oh come, I say,” he began, drawing back a step or two.  “I don’t half think this’ll do.  I’m married now, you see, and I’ve given up this sort of society.”.

Nick looked at him with an air of injured surprise.