“A week ago, I should have laughed at the suggestion.  Now, I don’t feel at all sure of his safety.  He goes about to meet the girl.  He’s dining at their hotel to-night.”

“You take a great interest in it,” said Mrs. Woolstan, her voice faltering a little.

“Because I am so surprised and disappointed about Dymchurch.  I thought better of him.  I took him for a philosopher.”

“But Mrs. Toplady says the girl is charming, and very clever.”

“That’s a matter of opinion.  Doesn’t Mrs. Toplady strike you as something of a busybody—­a glorified busybody, of course?”

“Oh, I like her!  And she speaks very nicely of you.”

“I’m much obliged.  But, after all, why should she speak otherwise than nicely of me?”

Whilst Iris was meditating an answer to this question, the cab pulled up at a great shop.  They alighted; the driver was bidden to wait; and along the alleys of the gleaming bazaar they sought a present suitable for Leonard Woolstan.  To Lashmar it was a scarcely tolerable ennui; he had even more than the average man’s hatred of shopping, and feminine indecision whipped him to contemptuous irritation.  To give himself something to do, he looked about for a purchase on his own account, and, having made it, told Iris that this was a present from him to his former pupil.

“Oh, how kind of you!” exclaimed the mother, regarding him tenderly.  “How very kind of you!  Len will be delighted, poor boy.”

They left the shop, and stood by the hansom.

“Where are you going to now?” asked Iris.

“Home, to work.  I have to address a meeting at Hollingford on the 20th, and I must think out a sufficiency of harmless nonsense.”

“Really?  A public meeting already?  Couldn’t I come and hear you?”

Dyce explained the nature of the gathering.

“But I shall see you before then,” he added, helping her to enter the cab.  “By the bye, don’t be indiscreet with reference to what we spoke of just now.”

“Why of course not,” answered Iris, her eyes fixed on his face as he drew back carelessly saluting.

Though Lashmar had elaborated his story concerning Lord Dymchurch on the spur of the moment, he now thoroughly believed it himself, and the result was a restlessness of mind which no conviction of its utter absurdity could overcome.  In vain did he remember that Lady Ogram had settled his destiny so far as the matter lay in her hands, and that to displease the choleric old autocrat would be to overthrow in a moment the edifice of hope reared by her aid.  The image of May Tomalin was constantly before his mind.  Not that he felt himself sentimentally drawn to her; but she represented an opportunity which it annoyed him to feel that he would not, if he chose, be permitted to grasp.  Miss Tomalin by no means satisfied his aspiration in the matter of marriage, whatever wealth she might have to bestow; he had always pictured a