“Well, here I am.  I can’t leave the street,” quoth Wilfrid, to the stock of philosophy at his disposal.  He burned with rage to think of how he might be exhibiting himself before Powys and his sister.

It was half-past nine when a carriage drove up to the door.  Into this Mr. Powys presently handed Georgiana and Emilia.  Braintop followed the ladies, and then the coachman received his instructions and drove away.  Forthwith Wilfrid started in pursuit.  He calculated that if his wind held till he could jump into a light cab, his legitimate prey Braintop might be caught.  For, “they can’t be taking him to any party with them!” he chose to think, and it was a fair calculation that they were simply conducting Braintop part of his way home.  The run was pretty swift.  Wilfrid’s blood was fired by the pace, until, forgetting the traitor Braintop, up rose Truth from the bottom of the well in him, and he felt that his sole desire was to see Emilia once more—­but once! that night.  Running hard, in the midst of obstacles, and with eye and mind fined on one object, disasters befell him.  He knocked apples off a stall, and heard vehement hallooing behind:  he came into collision with a gentleman of middle age courting digestion as he walked from his trusty dinner at home to his rubber at the Club:  finally he rushed full tilt against a pot-boy who was bringing all his pots broadside to the flow of the street.  “By Jove! is this what they drink?” he gasped, and dabbed with his handkerchief at the beer-splashes, breathlessly hailing the looked-for cab, and, with hot brow and straightened-out forefinger, telling the driver to keep that carriage in sight.  The pot-boy had to be satisfied on his master’s account, and then on his own, and away shot Wilfrid, wet with beer from throat to knee—­to his chief protesting sense, nothing but an exhalation of beer!  “Is this what they drink?” he groaned, thinking lamentably of the tastes of the populace.  All idea of going near Emilia was now abandoned.  An outward application of beer quenched his frenzy.  She seemed as an unattainable star seen from the depths of foul pits.  “Stop!” he cried from the window.

“Here we are, sir,” said the cabman.

The carriage had drawn up, and a footman’s alarum awakened one of the houses.  The wretched cabman had likewise drawn up right under the windows of the carriage.  Wilfrid could have pulled the trigger of a pistol at his forehead that moment.  He saw that Miss Ford had recognized him, and he at once bowed elegantly.  She dropped the window, and said, “You are in evening dress, I think; we will take you in with us.”

Wilfrid hoped eagerly he might be allowed to hand them to the door, and made three skips across the mire.  Emilia had her hands gathered away from the chances of seizure.  In wild rage he began protesting that he could not possibly enter, when Georgiana said, “I wish to speak to you,” and put feminine pressure upon him.  He was almost on the verge of the word “beer,” by way of despairing explanation, when the door closed behind him.