He lay back in the corner of a carriage, his arms hanging loose, his eyes on vacancy.  Of course he had guessed Quarrier’s opinion of the marriage he was making; he could imagine his speaking to Lilian about it with half-contemptuous amusement.  The daughter of a man like Mumbray—­an unformed, scarcely pretty girl, who had inherited a sort of fortune from some soap-boiling family—­what a culmination to a career of fastidious dilettantism!  “He has probably run through all his money,” Quarrier would add.  “Poor old fellow! he deserves better things.”

He had come to hate Quarrier.  Yet with no vulgar hatred; not with the vengeful rancour which would find delight in annihilating its object.  His feeling was consistent with a measure of justice to Denzil’s qualities, and even with a good deal of admiration; as it originated in mortified vanity, so it might have been replaced by the original kindness, if only some stroke of fortune or of power had set Glazzard in his original position of superiority.  Quarrier as an ingenuous young fellow looking up to the older comrade, reverencing his dicta, holding him an authority on most subjects, was acceptable, lovable; as a self-assertive man, given to patronage (though perhaps unconsciously), and succeeding in life as his friend stood still or retrograded, he aroused dangerous emotions.  Glazzard could no longer endure his presence, hated the sound of his voice, cursed his genial impudence; yet he did not wish for his final unhappiness—­only for a temporary pulling-down, a wholesome castigation of over-blown pride.

The sound of the rushing wheels affected his thought, kept it on the one subject, shaped it to a monotony of verbal suggestion.  Not a novel suggestion, by any means; something that his fancy had often played with; very much, perhaps, as that ingenious criminal spoken of by Serena amused himself with the picture of a wrecked train long before he resolved to enjoy the sight in reality.

“Live in the South,” Quarrier had urged.  “Precisely; in ether words:  Keep out of my way.  You’re a good, simple-hearted fellow, to be sure, but it was a pity I had to trust you with that secret.  Leave England for a long time.”

And why not?  Certainly it was good counsel—­if it had come from any one but Denzil Quarrier.  Probably he should act upon it after all.

CHAPTER XVII

His rooms were in readiness for him, and whilst the attendant prepared a light supper, he examined some letters which had arrived that evening.  Two of the envelopes contained pressing invitations—­ with reference to accounts rendered and re-rendered; he glanced over the writing and threw them into the fire.  The third missive was more interesting; it came from a lady of high social position at whose house he had formerly been a frequent guest.  “Why do we never see you?” she wrote.  “They tell me yen have passed the winter in England; why should you avoid your friends who have been condemned to the same endurance?  I am always at home on Thursday.”