Before going to luncheon on a Sunday it was Mr. Dalmaine’s practice to talk of things in general with his secretary.  To-day, among other questions, he asked, with a meaning smile: 

‘What of young Egremont’s lectures?  Has he recommenced?’

‘The first of the new course is to-night,’ replied Mr. Tasker, who sat bending a paper-cutter over his leg.  Mr. Dalmaine, knowing his secretary, encouraged him to be on easy terms.  In truth, he had a liking for Tasker.  Partly it reciprocated the other’s feeling, no doubt; and then one generally looks with indulgence on a man whom one has discovered and developed.

‘Does he go on with his literature?’

‘No.  The title is, “Thoughts for the Present."’

Mr. Dalmaine leaned back and laughed.  It was a hearty laugh.

‘I foresaw it, I foresaw it!  And how many hearers has he?’

‘Six only.’

‘To be sure.’

’But there is something more.  Mr. Egremont is going to present Lambeth with a free public library.  He has taken a building.’

‘A fact?  How do you know that, Tasker?’

’I heard it at the club last night.  He has informed the members of his class.’

‘Ha!  He is really going to bleed himself to prove his sincerity?’

They discussed the subject a little longer.  Then Mr. Dalmaine dictated a letter or two that he wished to have off his mind, and after that bade Tasker good-day.

At half-past four in the afternoon he drove up to a house at Lancaster Gate, where he had recently been a not infrequent visitor.  The servant preceded him with becoming stateliness to the drawing-room, and announced his name in the hearing of three ladies, who were pleasantly chatting in the aroma of tea.  The eldest of them was Mrs. Tyrrell; her companions were Miss Tyrrell and a young married lady paying a call.

Mrs. Tyrrell was one of those excellently preserved matrons who testify to the wholesome placidity of woman’s life in wealthy English homes.  Her existence had taken for granted the perfection of the universe; probably she had never thought of a problem which did not solve itself for the pleasant trouble of stating it in refined terms, and certainly it had never occurred to her that social propriety was distinguishable from the Absolute Good.  She was not a dull woman, and the opposite of an unfeeling one, but her wits and her heart had both been so subdued to the social code, that it was very difficult for her to entertain seriously any mode of thought or action for which she could not recall a respectable precedent.  By nature she was indulgent, of mild disposition, of sunny intelligence; so endowed, circumstances had bidden her regard it as the end of her being to respect conventions, to check her native impulse if ever it went counter to the opinion of Society, to use her intellect for the sole purpose of discovering how far it was permitted to be used.  And she