to master the language.  If necessary, he would support himself at Odessa for a time, until he was capable of serving the firm in some position of trust.  Yes, this was what he would do; it gave him a new hope.  For Alexander, foolish fellow as he might be in some respects, had spoken the truth on the subject of money-making; the best and surest way was by honourable commerce.  Money he must have; a substantial position; a prospect of social advance.  Not for their own sake, these things, but as steps to the only end he felt worth living for—­an ideal marriage.

He marvelled that the end of life should have been so obscure to him hitherto.  Knowledge!  What satisfaction was there in that?  Fame!  What profit in that by itself?  Yet he had thought these aims predominant; had been willing to toil day and night in such pursuits.  His eyes were opened.  His first torturing love might be for ever frustrate, but it had revealed him to himself.  He looked forth upon the world, its activities, its glories, and behold there was for him but one prize worth winning, the love of the ideal woman.

He found a letter at Ewell.  It contained a card of invitation; Mrs. John Jacks graciously announced to him that she would be at home on an evening a week hence, at nine o’clock.

How came he to have forgotten the Jacks family?  Not once had he mentioned to Miss Derwent that he was on friendly terms with these most respectable people.  What a foolish omission!  It would at once have given him a better standing in her sight, have smoothed their social relations.

Instantly, his plan of exile was forgotten.  He would accept this invitation, and on the same day, in the afternoon, he would boldly call at the Derwents’.  Why not?—­as Mrs. Hannaford said.  John Jacks, M.P., was undoubtedly the social superior of Dr. Derwent; admitted to the house at Queen’s Gate, one might surely with all confidence present oneself in Bryanston Square.  Was he not an educated man, by birth a gentleman?  If he had no position, why, who had at one-and-twenty?  How needlessly he had been humiliating and discouraging himself!  In the highest spirits he went down into the garden to talk with Mrs. Hannaford and Olga.  They gazed at him, astonished; he was a new creature; he joked and laughed and could hardly contain his exuberance of joy.  When there fell from him a casual mention of Mrs. Jacks’ card, no one could have imagined that this was the explanation of his altered mood.  Mrs. Hannaford felt sure that he had been to see Irene, and had received, or fancied, some sort of encouragement.  Olga thought so too, and felt sorry to see him in a fool’s paradise.