it might have been worth while to have made a bargain—­a woman like that could have made it worth while!  And he believed her quite capable of entertaining the proposition!  Her eye!  Pity—­quite a pity!  Mrs. Ventnor was not a wife who satisfied every aspiration.  But alas! the settlement was safe.  This baulking of the sentiment of love, whipped up, if anything, the longing for justice in Mr. Ventnor.  That old chap should feel his teeth now.  As a piece of investigation it was not so bad—­not so bad at all!  He had had a bit of luck, of course,—­no, not luck—­just that knack of doing the right thing at the right moment which marks a real genius for affairs.

But getting into his train to return to Mrs. Ventnor, he thought:  ’A woman like that would have been—!’ And he sighed.

2

With a neatly written cheque for fifty pounds in his pocket Bob Pillin turned in at 23, Millicent Villas on the afternoon after Mr. Ventnor’s visit.  Chivalry had won the day.  And he rang the bell with an elation which astonished him, for he knew he was doing a soft thing.

“Mrs. Larne is out, sir; Miss Phyllis is at home.”

His heart leaped.

“Oh-h!  I’m sorry.  I wonder if she’d see me?”

The little maid answered

“I think she’s been washin’ ’er’air, sir, but it may be dry be now.  I’ll see.”

Bob Pillin stood stock still beneath the young woman on the wall.  He could scarcely breathe.  If her hair were not dry—­how awful!  Suddenly he heard floating down a clear but smothered “Oh!  Gefoozleme!” and other words which he could not catch.  The little maid came running down.

“Miss Phyllis says, sir, she’ll be with you in a jiffy.  And I was to tell you that Master Jock is loose, sir.”

Bob Pillin answered “Tha-anks,” and passed into the drawing-room.  He went to the bureau, took an envelope, enclosed the cheque, and addressing it:  “Mrs. Larne,” replaced it in his pocket.  Then he crossed over to the mirror.  Never till this last month had he really doubted his own face; but now he wanted for it things he had never wanted.  It had too much flesh and colour.  It did not reflect his passion.  This was a handicap.  With a narrow white piping round his waistcoat opening, and a buttonhole of tuberoses, he had tried to repair its deficiencies.  But do what he would, he was never easy about himself nowadays, never up to that pitch which could make him confident in her presence.  And until this month to lack confidence had never been his wont.  A clear, high, mocking voice said: 

“Oh-h!  Conceited young man!”

And spinning round he saw Phyllis in the doorway.  Her light brown hair was fluffed out on her shoulders, so that he felt a kind of fainting-sweet sensation, and murmured inarticulately: 

“Oh!  I say—­how jolly!”

“Lawks!  It’s awful!  Have you come to see mother?”