inds are down, and a
cheerless fire is in the grate, or when blinds are up and street-lamps
salute the inhabitants with uncordial rays, are not entertaining places
of residence for restless spirits. Edward paced about the room. He lit a
cigar and puffed at it fretfully.

"Will you come and try one of the theatres for an hour?" he asked.

She rose submissively, afraid to say that she thought she should look ill
in the staring lights; but he, with great quickness of perception,
rendered her task easier by naming the dress she was to wear, the jewels,
and the colour of the opera cloak. Thus prompted, Dahlia went to her
chamber, and passively attired herself, thankful to have been spared the
pathetic troubles of a selection of garments from her wardrobe. When she
came forth, Edward thought her marvellously beautiful.

Pity that she had no strength of character whatever, nor any pointed
liveliness of mind to match and wrestle with his own, and cheer the
domestic hearth! But she was certainly beautiful. Edward kissed her hand
in commendation. Though it was practically annoying that she should be
sad, the hue and spirit of sadness came home to her aspect. Sorrow
visited her tenderly falling eyelids like a sister.

CHAPTER XII

Edward's engagement at his Club had been with his unfortunate cousin
Algernon; who not only wanted a dinner but 'five pounds or so' (the hazy
margin which may extend illimitably, or miserably contract, at the
lender's pleasure, and the necessity for which shows the borrower to be
dancing on Fortune's tight-rope above the old abyss).

"Over claret," was to have been the time for the asking; and Algernon
waited dinnerless until the healthy-going minutes distended and swelled
monstrous and horrible as viper-bitten bodies, and the venerable Signior,
Time, became of unhealthy hue. For this was the first dinner which,
during the whole course of the young man's career, had ever been failing
to him. Reflect upon the mournful gap! He could scarcely believe in his
ill-luck. He suggested it to himself with an inane grin, as one of the
far-away freaks of circumstances that had struck him--and was it not
comical?

He waited from the hour of six till the hour of seven. He compared clocks
in the hall and the room. He changed the posture of his legs fifty times.
For a while he wrestled right gallantly with the apparent menace of the
Fates that he was to get no dinner at all that day; it seemed incredibly
d