whereof might have been found in a
certain wilful pleasure which she had drawn from constantly impelling
him to acts and admissions which she knew to be alien to his nature.

It was some revival of this idea which explained her exclamation, "How
dare he?" For his conduct appeared more in the light of an outrage and
insult to her than of a degradation of himself. He must be rescued
from his position, she determined.

She stooped to pick up the bill from the floor as the brougham swung
sharply round a corner. She looked out of the window; the coachman had
turned into Berkeley Square; in another hundred yards she would reach
home. She hastily pulled the check-string, and the footman came to the
door. "Drive down the Mile-End road," she said; "I will fetch Sir John
home." Lady Tamworth read the address on the bill. "Near the Pavilion
Theatre," Mr. Dale had explained. She would just see the place this
evening, she determined, and then reflect on the practical course to
be pursued.

The decision relieved her of her sense of humiliation, and she nestled
back among her furs with a sigh of content. There was a pleasurable
excitement about her present impulse which contrasted very brightly
with her recent _ennui_. She felt that her wish to do something,
to exert an influence, had been providentially answered. The task,
besides, seemed to her to have a flavour of antique chivalry; it
smacked of the princess undoing enchantments, and reminded her vaguely
of Camelot. She determined to stop at the house and begin the work
at once; so she summoned the footman a second time and gave him the
address. So great indeed was the charm which her conception exercised
over her, that her very indignation against Julian changed to pity.
He had to be fitted to the chivalric pattern, and consequently
refashioned. Her harlequin fancy straightway transformed him into the
romantic lover who, having lost his mistress, had lost the world and
therefore, naturally, held the sale of baby-linen on a par with the
painting of pictures. "Poor Julian!" she thought.

The carriage stopped suddenly in front of a shuttered window. A
neighbouring gas-lamp lit up the letters on the board above it, _Z.
Moss_. This unexpected check in the full flight of ardour dropped her
to earth like a plummet. And as if to accentuate her disappointment
the surrounding shops were aglare with light; customers pressed
busily in and out of them, and even on the roadway naphtha-jets