gating the circumstance--it was so
extraordinary. The music rose in a triumphant swell. And now he was sure
that he was not to be blamed for thinking this form of entertainment
detestable. How could people pretend to like it? "Upon my honour!" he
said aloud. The hypocritical nonsense of pretending to like opera-music
disgusted him.

"Where is it, Algy?" a friend of his and Suckling's asked, with a languid
laugh.

"Where's what?"

"Your honour."

"My honour? Do you doubt my honour?" Algernon stared defiantly at the
inoffensive little fellow.

"Not in the slightest. Very sorry to, seeing that I have you down in my
book."

"Latters? Ah, yes," said Algernon, musically, and letting his under-lip
hang that he might restrain the impulse to bite it. "Fifty, or a hundred,
is it? I lost my book on the Downs."

"Fifty; but wait till settling-day, my good fellow, and don't fiddle at
your pockets as if I'd been touching you up for the money. Come and sup
with me to-night."

Algernon muttered a queer reply in a good-tempered tone, and escaped him.

He was sobered by that naming of settling-day. He could now listen to the
music with attention, if not with satisfaction. As he did so, the head of
drowned memory rose slowly up through the wine-bubbles in his brain, and
he flung out a far thought for relief: "How, if I were to leave England
with that dark girl Rhoda at Wrexby, marry her like a man, and live a
wild ramping life in the colonies?" A curtain closed on the prospect, but
if memory was resolved that it would not be drowned, he had at any rate
dosed it with something fresh to occupy its digestion.

His opera-glass had been scouring the house for a sight of Mrs. Lovell,
and at last she appeared in Lord Elling's box.

"I can give you two minutes, Algy," she said, as he entered and found her
opportunely alone. "We have lost, I hear. No interjection, pray. Let it
be, fors l'honneur, with us. Come to me to-morrow. You have tossed
trinkets into my lap. They were marks of esteem, my cousin. Take them in
the same light back from me. Turn them into money, and pay what is most
pressing. Then go to Lord Suckling. He is a good boy, and won't distress
you; but you must speak openly to him at once. Perhaps he will help you.
I will do my best, though whether I can, I have yet to learn."

"Dear Mrs. Lovell!" Algernon burst out, and the corners of his mouth
played nervously.

He liked her kindness, and he was wroth at the project