“Mutton chops, cheese, and ale fed your forefathers,” reflected Grosse.

“What will you have, sir?” in a foreign accent.

“Oh! anything; just what comes for the two shilling dinner—­no, not hors d’oeuvres; yes, soup.”

Edmund had turned with ill-restrained disgust from the sardines, tomatoes, and other oily horrors.  But there was no denying the qualities of the soup:  the most experienced and cultivated palate and stomach must be soothed by it, and in a moment of greater cheerfulness Edmund turned his attention to three young men close to him who were talking French.  Their hands were clean and their collars, but poverty was writ large on their spare faces and well-brushed clothes.  One was olive-complexioned, one quite fair, but with olive tints in the shadows round the eyes, and the third grey, old, and purple-cheeked from shaving.  They ate little, but they talked much.  The talked of literature and art with fierce dogmatism, and they seemed frequently on the verge of a quarrel, but the storm each time sank quite suddenly without the least consciousness of the danger passed.  They looked at the food as critics, and acknowledged it to be eatable, with the faint air of an exile’s sadness.

Edmund wished to think that he was amused by their talk, but the distraction did not last.  His thoughts would have their way, and he was soon trying to defend his defence of himself to Molly.  All he said had seemed so obviously true as the words poured out, but there had been fatal reservations.  He had spoken as if all suspicions, all proceedings as to discovering the will were past.  He had felt he had no right to give away secrets that were not his own.  But had he not produced a false impression?  What would Molly have thought of him as he passionately rejected the notion of suspecting her if she had seen the letter from Murray in his pocket?  It was true that he no longer financed any of the proceedings against her, but they had all been set on foot by him.  He was in the plot that was thickening, and he had won the confidence of the victim!  He had no doubt that Molly was innocent, and he was ashamed of the pitiful confidence he had read in her eyes when he left her.  But he still believed that her mother had been guilty, and that Molly’s wealth was the result of that guilt.  It was true that he wanted to be her friend, but it was also true that he would rejoice if Rose came into her own and the gross injustice were righted.  But, after all, what absolute evidence had they got, as yet, as to the contents of this last will, or what proof even of its existence?  He felt almost glad for the fraction of a moment that Molly might remain the gorgeous mistress of the old house in Park Lane uninjured by anything he had done against her.  “How absurd,” he thought, “how drivelling!  The fact is that girl impressed me enough to-day, to make me see myself from her point of view, or what would be her point of view if she knew all!”