The cab, with the jerking and thumping peculiar to hansoms, made a circle and drew up at the curb.  But even then a moment of irresolution intervened, and she sat staring through the little side window at the sign, T. Gerald Shorter, Real Estate, in neat gold letters over the basement floor of the building.

“Here y’are, Miss,” said the cabman through the hole in the roof.

Honora descended, and was almost at the flight of steps leading down to the office door when a familiar figure appeared coming out of it.  It was that of Mr. Toots Cuthbert, arrayed in a faultless morning suit, his tie delicately suggestive of falling leaves; and there dangled over his arm the slenderest of walking sticks.

“Mrs. Spence!” he lisped, with every appearance of joy.

“Mr. Cuthbert!” she cried.

“Going in to see Jerry?” he inquired after he had put on his hat, nodding up at the sign.

“I—­that is, yes, I had thought of it,” she answered.

“Town house?” said Mr. Cuthbert, with a knowing smile.

“I did have an idea of looking at houses,” she confessed, somewhat taken aback.

“I’m your man,” announced Mr. Cuthbert.

“You!” exclaimed Honora, with an air of considering the lilies of the field.  But he did not seem to take offence.

“That’s my business,” he proclaimed,—­“when in town.  Jerry gives me a commission.  Come in and see him, while I get a list and some keys.  By the way, you wouldn’t object to telling him you were a friend of mine, would you?”

“Not at all,” said Honora, laughing.

Mr. Shorter was a jovial gentleman in loose-fitting clothes, and he was exceedingly glad to meet Mr. Cuthbert’s friend.

“What kind of a house do you want, Mrs. Spence?” he asked.  “Cuthbert tells me this morning that the Whitworth house has come into the market.  You couldn’t have a better location than that, on the Avenue between the Cathedral and the Park.”

“Oh,” said Honora with a gasp, “that’s much too expensive, I’m sure.  And there are only two of us.”  She hesitated, a little alarmed at the rapidity with which affairs were proceeding, and added:  “I ought to tell you that I’ve not really decided to take a house.  I wished to—­to see what there was to be had, and then I should have to consult my husband.”

She gazed very seriously into Mr. Shorter’s brown eyes, which became very wide and serious, too.  But all the time it seemed to her that other parts of him were laughing.

“Husbands,” he declared, “are kill-joys.  What have they got to do with a house—­except to sleep in it?  Now I haven’t the pleasure of knowing you as well as I hope to one of these days, Mrs. Spence—­”

“Oh, I say!” interrupted Mr. Cuthbert.

“But I venture to predict, on a slight acquaintance,” continued Mr. Shorter, undisturbed, “that you will pick out the house you want, and that your husband will move into it.”