If this renewal of acquaintanceship came just at the right time for Maud, it was no less welcome to Waymark.  When he wrote his last letter to her, it had proceeded more from a sense of obligation than any natural impulse.  For he was then only just recovering from a period of something like despair.  His pursuit of Ida Starr to London had been fruitless.  It was true that she had left her former abode, and the landlady professed to be ignorant of her new one, though she admitted that she had seen Ida scarcely two hours before Waymark’s arrival.  He wrote, but had no reply.  His only comfort was an ever-rising suspicion of the truth (as he would learn it later), but fears were, on the whole, strongest within him.  Confidence in her he had not.  All the reflections of that last evening on Hastings pier lived and re-lived in his mind; outcome of the cynicism which was a marked feature in his development, and at the same time tending to confirm it.  She had been summoned back suddenly by a letter; who but a simpleton could doubt what that meant?  He thought of Sally, of course, and the step she had taken; but could he draw conclusions about Ida from Sally, and did ever two such instances come within a man’s experience?  To Sally herself he had naturally had recourse, but in vain.  She said that she knew nothing of the lost girl.  So Waymark fought it out, to the result of weariness; then plunged into his work again, and had regained very much his ordinary state of mind when Maud Enderby unexpectedly came before him.

He called upon the Enderbys, and was soon invited to dine, which necessitated the purchase of a dress suit.  On the appointed evening, he found Maud and her mother in a little drawing-room, which had a pleasant air of ease and refinement.  It was a new sensation for Waymark as he sank into a soft chair, and, in speaking, lowered his voice, to suit the quietness of the room.  The soft lamp-light spreading through the coloured shade, the just perceptible odour of scent when Mrs. Enderby stirred, the crackling of the welcome fire, filled him with a sense of luxury to which he was not accustomed.  He looked at Maud.  She was beautiful in her evening dress; and, marking the grave, sweet thoughtfulness of her face, the grace of her movements, the air of purity which clung about her, his mind turned to Ida Starr, and experienced a shock at the comparison.  Where was Ida at this moment?  The mere possibilities which such a question brought before his mind made him uneasy, almost as if he had forgotten himself and uttered aloud some word all unfit for ladies’ ears.  The feeling was a novel one, and, in afterwards recalling it, he could smile rather contemptuously, If we are enraptured with one particular flower, shall we necessarily despise another, whose beauty and perfume happen to be of quite a different kind?

Mr. Enderby appeared, followed by another gentleman.  Waymark noticed an unpleasant heat in the hand held out to him; there was a flush in Paul’s cheeks, too, and his eyes were very bright.  He greeted the visitor with somewhat excessive warmth, then turned and introduced his companion, by the name of Mr. Rudge.