“I thought you didn’t seem to find it so dull since Amelia came home,” said Cradell.

“Amelia!  What’s Amelia to me?  I have told you everything, Cradell, and yet you can talk to me about Amelia Roper!”

“Come now, Johnny—.”  He had always been called Johnny, and the name had gone with him to his office.  Even Amelia Roper had called him Johnny on more than one occasion before this.  “You were as sweet to her the other night as though there were no such person as L. D. in existence.”  John Eames turned away and shook his head.  Nevertheless, the words of his friend were grateful to him.  The character of a Don Juan was not unpleasant to his imagination, and he liked to think that he might amuse Amelia Roper with a passing word, though his heart was true to Lilian Dale.  In truth, however, many more of the passing words had been spoken by the fair Amelia than by him.

Mrs Roper had been quite as good as her word when she told Mrs Eames that her household was composed of herself, of a son who was in an attorney’s office, of an ancient maiden cousin, named Miss Spruce, who lodged with her, and of Mr Cradell.  The divine Amelia had not then been living with her, and the nature of the statement which she was making by no means compelled her to inform Mrs Eames that the young lady would probably return home in the following winter.  A Mr and Mrs Lupex had also joined the family lately, and Mrs Roper’s house was now supposed to be full.

And it must be acknowledged that Johnny Eames had, in certain unguarded moments, confided to Cradell the secret of a second weaker passion for Amelia.  “She is a fine girl,—­a deuced fine girl!” Johnny Eames had said, using a style of language which he had learned since he left Guestwick and Allington.  Mr Cradell, also, was an admirer of the fair sex; and, alas! that I should say so, Mrs Lupex, at the present moment, was the object of his admiration.  Not that he entertained the slightest idea of wronging Mr Lupex,—­a man who was a scene-painter, and knew the world.  Mr Cradell admired Mrs Lupex as a connoisseur, not simply as a man.  “By heavens!  Johnny, what a figure that woman has!” he said, one morning, as they were walking to their office.

“Yes; she stands well on her pins.”

“I should think she did.  If I understand anything of form,” said Cradell, “that woman is nearly perfect.  What a torso she has!”

From which expression, and from the fact that Mrs Lupex depended greatly upon her stays and crinoline for such figure as she succeeded in displaying, it may, perhaps, be understood that Mr Cradell did not understand much about form.

“It seems to me that her nose isn’t quite straight,” said Johnny Eames.  Now, it undoubtedly was the fact that the nose on Mrs Lupex’s face was a little awry.  It was a long, thin nose, which, as it progressed forward into the air, certainly had a preponderating bias towards the left side.