‘You won’t have such a chance again,’ she said.  Shrugs had set in.

They agreed as to the behaviour of the girl’s mother.  It reflected on the father, he thought.

‘Difficult thing to proclaim, before an engagement!’ Her shoulders were restless.

‘When a man’s feelings get entangled!’

‘Oh! a man’s feelings!  I’m your British Jury for, a woman’s.’

‘He has married her?’

She declared to not knowing particulars.  She could fib smoothly.

The next day she was on the line to London, armed with the proposal of an appointment for the Hon. Dudley to meet ‘the girl’s father.’

CHAPTER XXVII

Contains what is A small thing or A great, as the soul of the chief actor
may decide

Skepsey ushered Lady Grace into his master’s private room, and entertained her during his master’s absence.  He had buried his wife, he said:  she feared, seeing his posture of the soaping of hands at one shoulder, that he was about to bewail it; and he did wish to talk of it, to show his modest companionship with her in loss, and how a consolation for our sorrows may be obtained:  but he won her approval, by taking the acceptable course between the dues to the subject and those to his hearer, as a model cab should drive considerate equally of horse and fare.

A day of holiday at Hampstead, after the lowering of the poor woman’s bones into earth, had been followed by a descent upon London; and at night he had found himself in the immediate neighbourhood of a public house, noted for sparring exhibitions and instructions on the first floor; and he was melancholy, unable quite to disperse ‘the ravens’ flocking to us on such days:  though, if we ask why we have to go out of the world, there is a corresponding inquiry, of what good was our coming into it; and unless we are doing good work for our country, the answer is not satisfactory—­except, that we are as well gone.  Thinking which, he was accosted by a young woman:  perfectly respectable, in every way:  who inquired if he had seen a young man enter the door.  She described him, and reviled the temptations of those houses; and ultimately, as she insisted upon going in to look for the young man and use her persuasions to withdraw him from ‘that snare of Satan,’ he had accompanied her, and he had gone upstairs and brought the young man down.  But friends, or the acquaintances they call friends, were with him, and they were ‘in drink,’ and abused the young woman; and she had her hand on the young man’s arm, quoting Scripture.  Sad to relate of men bearing the name of Englishmen—­and it was hardly much better if they pleaded intoxication!—­they were not content to tear the young man from her grasp, they hustled her, pushed her out, dragged her in the street.