But it would not be wise to punish a man on the spot for breaking an appointment which he himself had not kept, and therefore he would wait for another opportunity.  ‘You had better go to your own room now,’ he said.  ’I am engaged on a matter connected with the Treasury, in which I will not ask for your assistance.’  He knew that Eames would not believe a word as to what he said about the Treasury—­not even some very trifling base of truth which did exist; but the boast gave him an opportunity of putting an end to the interview after his own fashion.  Then John Eames went to his own room and answered the letters which he had in his pocket.

To the club dinner he would not go.  ’What’s the use of paying two guineas for a dinner with fellows you see every day of your life?’ he said.  To Lady Glencora’s he would go, and he wrote a line to his friend Dalrymple proposing that they should go together.  And he would dine with his cousin Toogood in Tavistock Square.  ’One meets the queerest people in the world there,’ he said; ’but Tommy Toogood is such a good fellow himself!’ After that he had his lunch.  Then he read the paper, and before he went away he wrote a dozen or two of private notes, presenting Sir Raffle’s compliments right and left, and giving in no one note a single word of information that could be of any use to any person.  Having thus earned his salary by half-past four o’clock he got into a hansom cab and had himself driven to Porchester Terrace.  Miss Demolines was at home, of course, and he soon found himself closeted with that interesting young woman.

‘I thought you never would have come.’  These were the first words she spoke.

’My dear Miss Demolines, you must not forget that I have my bread to earn.’

’Fiddlesticks!—­Bread!  As if I didn’t know that you can get away from your office when you choose.’

‘But, indeed, I cannot.’

‘What is there to prevent you, Mr Eames?’

’I’m not tied up like a dog, certainly; but who do you suppose will do my work if I do not do it myself?  It is a fact, though the world does not believe it, that men in public offices have something to do.’

’Now you are laughing at me, I know; but you are welcome, if you like it.  It’s the way of the world just at present that ladies should submit to that sort of thing from gentlemen.’

‘What sort of thing, Miss Demolines?’

’Chaff, as you call it.  Courtesy is out of fashion, and gallantry has come to signify quite a different kind of thing from what it used to do.’

’The Sir Charles Grandison business is done and gone.  That’s what you mean, I suppose?  Don’t you think we should find it very heavy if we tried to get it back again?’

’I’m not going to ask you to be a Sir Charles Grandison, Mr Eames.  But never mind all that now.  Do you know that that girl has absolutely had her first sitting for the picture?’

‘Has she, indeed?’