‘Chilvers?—­No.’

’Mrs. Morton tells us that all the Church newspapers ring with his name.’

‘Please don’t think,’ cried Mrs. Morton, with the same anxious look as before, ’that I read such papers.  We never have such a thing in our house, Mr. Peak.  I have only been told about it.’

Peak smiled gravely, but made no other answer.  Then he turned to Earwaker.

‘Where is he?’

’I can’t say.  Perhaps Mrs. Morton’—­

‘They tell me he is somewhere in Norfolk,’ replied the lady.  ’I forget the town.’

A summons to dinner broke off the conversation.  Moxey offered his arm to the one lady present as guest, and Earwaker did the same courtesy to the hostess.  Mr. Morton, a meditative young man who had been listening with a smile of indifference, sauntered along in the rear with Godwin Peak.

At the dinner-table Peak was taciturn, and seemed to be musing on a disagreeable subject.  To remarks, he answered briefly and absently.  As Moxey, Earwaker, and Mrs. Morton kept up lively general talk, this muteness was not much noticed, but when the ladies had left the room, and Peak still frowned over his wineglass, the journalist rebuked him.

‘What’s the matter with you?  Don’t depress us.’

The other laughed impatiently, and emptied his glass.

‘Malkin has come back,’ pursued Earwaker.  ’He burst in upon me, just as I was leaving home—­as mad as a March hare.  You must come and meet him some evening.’

‘As you please.’

Returned to the upper room, Peak seated himself in a shadowy corner, crossed his legs, thrust his hands into his pockets, and leaned back to regard a picture on the wall opposite.  This attitude gave sufficient proof of the change that had been wrought in him by the years between nineteen and nine-and-twenty; even in a drawing-room, he could take his ease unconcernedly.  His face would have led one to suppose him an older man; it was set in an expression of stern, if not morose, thoughtfulness.

He had small, hard lips, indifferent teeth (seldom exhibited), a prominent chin, a long neck; his body was of firm, not ungraceful build.  Society’s evening uniform does not allow a man much scope in the matter of adornments; it was plain, however, that Godwin no longer scorned the tailor and haberdasher.  He wore a suit which confidently challenged the criticism of experts, and the silk socks visible above his shoes might have been selected by the most fastidious of worldlings.

When he had sat there for some minutes, his eyes happened to stray towards Miss Moxey, who was just then without a companion.  Her glance answered to his, and a smile of invitation left him no choice but to rise and go to a seat beside her.

‘You are meditative this evening,’ she said, in a voice subdued below its ordinary note.

‘Not very fit for society, to tell the truth,’ Godwin answered, carelessly.  ’One has such moods, you know.  But how would you take it if, at the last moment, I sent a telegram, “Please excuse me.  Don’t feel able to talk"?’