penetration enough to discover that the males had the upper hand in the
establishment, did not give himself the trouble to conciliate the less
important members of it; but Harry, always timid and suspicious, was
alarmed at him; his air had, in her eyes, something hostile in it as
well as contemptuous. She could not understand, and therefore
mistrusted, the influence he had evidently obtained over her husband,
and which already had superseded that of Mrs. Basil.

That Solomon should no longer take pains to make himself agreeable to
the latter, now that he had obtained from her his object, was, to any
one who knew his character, explicable enough; but why should this
stranger have taken her place as his counselor and friend? The idea of
some personal advantage was, of course, at the bottom of it; but it was
clear, not only to sage Mrs. Basil, but even to Harry--since even a
moderately skillful looker-on sees more of the game than the best
player--that in any contest of wits Solomon would have small chance with
his new friend. The opinion of Mrs. Basil was, that some new
speculation, in some manner connected with the Crompton sale, had been
entered into by the two men, and that Mr. Balfour would in the end
secure the oyster, while Mr. Coe was left with the shell. But Harry had
darker forebodings still; she was instinctively confident that there was
enmity at work in the new-comer, as well as the readiness common to all
speculators to overreach a friend. There was a look in his pallid face,
when it glanced, as he thought unheeded, on either Charles or Solomon,
which, to her mind, boded ill. If it did so, it was certainly
unsuspected by those on whom it fell. Mr. Coe had apparently never found
a companion so agreeable to him; and, curiously enough, this idea seemed
to be shared by Charles. According to his own account, Mr. Balfour had
been abroad in Western America for many years, and had there retrieved a
fortune which, originally inherited, had been speedily dissipated in the
pleasures of the town. His long absence from such scenes had by no means
dulled his taste for them, and his conversation ran on little else. He
had a light rattling way with him--that, to Harry's view, resembled
youthful spirit no more than galvanism in a corpse resembles life, and
which was certainly not in harmony with his age and appearance--and very
graphic powers of description; he expressed himself curious about the
changes in public amusements