She left him standing there in the street.  With well-practised tact he darted into a tobacconist’s shop.

“Another shake-down,” he reflected ruefully.  “They’re all passing me up to-day.  But, great hooks, what’s all this about Medcroft and Constance?” He bought some cigarets and started off for a walk, mildly excited by this new turn of affairs.  It occurred to him, as he turned it all over in his mind, that Mrs. Medcroft was amazingly resigned to the situation.  Of course, she was not blind to her husband’s infatuation for her sister.  Therefore, if she were so cheerful and indifferent about it, it followed that she was not especially distressed; in fact, it suddenly dawned upon him she was not only reconciled but relieved.  She had ceased to love her husband!  She could be a freelance in Love’s lists, notwithstanding the inconvenience of a legal attachment.  “She’s ripping, too,” concluded Freddie, with a certain buoyancy of spirit.  “If she doesn’t love Medcroft, she at least ought to love someone else instead.  It’s customary.  I wonder—­” Here he reflected deeply for an instant, his spirits floating high.  Then he turned abruptly and made his way to the Tirol.

It came to pass, in the course of the evening, that Mr. Ulstervelt, supremely confident from the effect of past achievements, drew the unsuspecting Mrs. Medcroft into a secluded tete-a-tete.  It is not of record that he was ever a diplomatic wooer; one in haste never is.  Suffice it to say, Mrs. Medcroft, her cheeks flaming, her eyes wide with indignation, suddenly left the side of the indomitable Freddie and joined the party at the other end of the entresol, but not before she had said to him with unmistakable clearness and decision,—­

“You little wretch!  How dare you say such silly things to me!”

The rebuff decisive!  And he had only meant to be comforting, not to say self-sacrificing.  He’d be hanged if he could understand women nowadays.  Not these women, at least.  In high dudgeon he stalked from the room.  In the door he met Brock.

“For two cents,” he declared savagely, as if Brock were to blame, “I’d take the next train for Paris.”

Brock watched him down the hall.  He drew a handful of small coins from his pocket, ruefully looking them over.  “Two cents,” he said.  “Hang it all, I’ve nothing here but pfennigs and hellers and centimes.”

In the course of his wanderings the disconsolate Freddie came upon Mrs. Odell-Carney and pudgy Mr. Rodney.  They were sitting in a quiet corner of the reading-room.  Mr. Rodney had had a hard day.  He had climbed a mountain—­or, more accurately speaking, he had climbed half-way up and then the same half down.  He was very tired.  Freddie observed from his lonely station that Mr. Rodney was fast dropping to sleep, notwithstanding his companion’s rapid flow of small talk.  It did not take Freddie long to decide.  He was an outcast and a pariah and he was very lonely.  He must have someone to talk