When Crosbie returned home after this little conversation about the baby, he was told by his wife that they were to dine with the Gazebees on the next Sunday.  On hearing this he shook his head with vexation.  He knew, however, that he had no right to make complaint, as he had been only taken to St. John’s Wood once since they had come home from their marriage trip.  There was, however, one point as to which he could grumble.  “Why, on earth, on Sunday?”

“Because Amelia asked me for Sunday.  If you are asked for Sunday, you cannot say you’ll go on Monday.”

“It is so terrible on a Sunday afternoon.  At what hour?”

“She said half-past five.”

“Heavens and earth!  What are we to do all the evening?”

“It is not kind of you, Adolphus, to speak in that way of my relations.”

“Come, my love, that’s a joke; as if I hadn’t heard you say the same thing twenty times.  You’ve complained of having to go up there much more bitterly than I ever did.  You know I like your sister, and, in his way, Gazebee is a very good fellow; but after three or four hours, one begins to have had enough of him.”

“It can’t be much duller than it is—­” but Lady Alexandrina stopped herself before she finished her speech.

“One can always read at home, at any rate,” said Crosbie.

“One can’t always be reading.  However, I have said you would go.  If you choose to refuse, you must write and explain.”

When the Sunday came the Crosbies of course did go to St. John’s Wood, arriving punctually at that door which he so hated at half-past five.  One of the earliest resolutions which he made when he first contemplated the de Courcy match, was altogether hostile to the Gazebees.  He would see but very little of them.  He would shake himself free of that connection.  It was not with that branch of the family that he desired an alliance.  But now, as things had gone, that was the only branch of the family with which he seemed to be allied.  He was always hearing of the Gazebees.  Amelia and Alexandrina were constantly together.  He was now dragged there to a Sunday dinner; and he knew that he should often be dragged there,—­that he could not avoid such draggings.  He already owed money to Mortimer Gazebee, and was aware that his affairs had been allowed to fall into that lawyer’s hands in such a way that he could not take them out again.  His house was very thoroughly furnished, and he knew that the bills had been paid; but he had not paid them; every shilling had been paid through Mortimer Gazebee.

“Go with your mother and aunt, de Courcy,” the attorney said to the lingering child after dinner; and then Crosbie was left alone with his wife’s brother-in-law.  This was the period of the St. John’s Wood purgatory which was so dreadful to him.  With his sister-in-law he could talk, remembering perhaps always that she was an earl’s daughter.  But with Gazebee he had nothing in common.