Weyburn sent his dream flying with as dreamy an after-thought:  ’Funny it will be then for Lady Charlotte to revert to the stuff she has been droning in my ear half an hour ago!—­Look well behind, and we see spots where we buzzed, lowed, bit and tore; and not until we have cast that look and seen the brute are we human creatures.’

A crumb of reflection such as this could brace him, adding its modest maravedi to his prized storehouse of gain, fortifying with assurances of his having a concrete basis for his business in life.  His great youthful ambition had descended to it, but had sunk to climb on a firmer footing.

Arthur Abner had his next adieu.  They talked of Lady Ormont, as to whose position of rightful Countess of Ormont Mr. Abner had no doubt.  He said of Lady Charlotte:  ’She has a clear head; but she loves her “brother Rowsley” excessively; and any excess pushes to craziness.’

He spoke to Weyburn of his prospects in the usually, perhaps necessarily, cheerless tone of men who recognize by contrast the one mouse’s nibbling at a mountain of evil.  ’To harmonize the nationalities, my dear boy! teach Christians to look fraternally on Jews!  David was a harper, but the setting of him down to roll off a fugue on one of your cathedral organs would not impose a heavier task than you are undertaking.  You have my best wishes, whatever aid I can supply.  But we ’re nearer to King John’s time than to your ideal, as far as the Jews go.’

‘Not in England.’

‘Less in England,’ Abner shrugged.

’You have beaten the Christians on the field they challenged you to enter for a try.  They feel the pinch in their interests and their vanity.  That will pass.  I ’m for the two sides, under the name of Justice; and I give the palm to whichever of the two first gets hold of the idea of Justice.  My old schoolmate’s well?’

‘Always asking after Matey Weyburn!’

’He shall have my address in Switzerland.  You and I will be corresponding.’

Now rose to view the visit to the lady who was Lady Ormont on the tongue, Aminta at heart; never to be named Aminta even to himself.  His heart broke loose at a thought of it.

He might say Browny.  For that was not serious with the intense present signification the name Aminta had.  Browny was queen of the old school-time-enclosed it in her name; and that sphere enclosed her, not excluding him.  And the dear name of Browny played gently, humorously, fervently, too, with life:  not, pathetically, as that of Aminta did when came a whisper of her situation, her isolation, her friendlessness; hardly dissimilar to what could be imagined of a gazelle in the streets of London city.  The Morsfields were not all slain.  The Weyburns would be absent.

At the gate of his cottage garden Weyburn beheld a short unfamiliar figure of a man with dimly remembered features.  Little Collett he still was in height.  The schoolmates had not met since the old days of Cuper’s.