ladies on horseback cantered past. "Let them go," he thought.
Yesterday, the sight of one would have set him dreaming on grand
alliances. When you can afford to be a bachelor, the case is otherwise.
Presently, who should ride by but Mrs. Lovell! She was talking more
earnestly than was becoming, to that easy-mannered dark-eyed fellow; the
man who had made him savage by entering the opera-box.

"Poor old Ned!" said Algernon; "I must put him on his guard." But, even
the lifting of a finger--a hint on paper--would bring Edward over from
Paris, as he knew; and that was not in his scheme; so he only determined
to write to his cousin.

A flood of evening gold lay over the Western park.

"The glory of this place," Algernon said to himself, "is, that you're
sure of meeting none but gentlemen here;" and he contrasted it with Epsom
Downs.

A superstitious horror seized him when, casting his eyes ahead, he
perceived Sedgett among the tasteful groups--as discordant a figure as
could well be seen, and clumsily aware of it, for he could neither step
nor look like a man at ease. Algernon swung round and retraced his way;
but Sedgett had long sight.

"I'd heard of London"--Algernon soon had the hated voice in his
ears,--"and I've bin up to London b'fore; I came here to have a wink at
the fash'nables--hang me, if ever I see such a scrumptious lot. It's
worth a walk up and down for a hour or more. D' you come heer often,
sir?"

"Eh? Who are you? Oh!" said Algernon, half mad with rage. "Excuse me;"
and he walked faster.

"Fifty times over," Sedgett responded cheerfully. "I'd pace you for a
match up and down this place if you liked. Ain't the horses a spectacle?
I'd rather be heer than there at they Races. As for the ladies, I'll tell
you what: ladies or no ladies, give my young woman time for her hair to
grow; and her colour to come, by George! if she wouldn't shine against
e'er a one--smite me stone blind, if she wouldn't! So she shall!
Australia'll see. I owe you my thanks for interdoocin' me, and never fear
my not remembering."

Where there was a crowd, Algernon could elude his persecutor by threading
his way rapidly; but the open spaces condemned him to merciless exposure,
and he flew before eyes that his imagination exaggerated to a stretch of
supernatural astonishment. The tips of his fingers, the roots of his
hair, pricked with vexation, and still, manoeuvre as he might, Sedgett
followed him.

"Call at my chambers," he