or looked searchingly and rather pityingly in his face.

"It won't do to go for it at present," he said. "Are you still set on
this divorce? I told you in my letter that I am not sure you are right."

"How can you ask me, Paramor? After that man's conduct last night, I am
more than ever set on it."

"Then," said Mr. Paramor, "we must keep a sharp eye on Bellew, and hope
for the best."

Gregory held out his hand.

"You spoke of morality," he said. "I can't tell you how inexpressibly
mean the whole thing seems to me. Goodnight."

And, turning rather quickly, he went out.

His mind was confused and his heart torn. He thought of Helen Bellew as
of the woman dearest to him in the coils of a great slimy serpent, and
the knowledge that each man and woman unhappily married was, whether by
his own, his partner's, or by no fault at all, in the same embrace,
afforded him no comfort whatsoever. It was long before he left the windy
streets to go to his home.

CHAPTER X

AT BLAFARD'S

There comes now and then to the surface of our modern civilisation one of
those great and good men who, unconscious, like all great and good men,
of the goodness and greatness of their work, leave behind a lasting
memorial of themselves before they go bankrupt.

It was so with the founder of the Stoics' Club.

He came to the surface in the year 187-, with nothing in the world but
his clothes and an idea. In a single year he had floated the Stoics'
Club, made ten thousand pounds, lost more, and gone down again.

The Stoics' Club lived after him by reason of the immortal beauty of his
idea. In 1891 it was a strong and corporate body, not perhaps quite so
exclusive as it had been, but, on the whole, as smart and aristocratic as
any club in London, with the exception of that one or two into which
nobody ever got. The idea with which its founder had underpinned the
edifice was, like all great ideas, simple, permanent, and perfect--so
simple, permanent, and perfect that it seemed amazing no one had ever
thought of it before. It was embodied in No. 1 of the members' rules:

"No member of this club shall have any occupation whatsoever."

Hence the name of a club renowned throughout London for the excellence of
its wines and cuisine.

Its situation was in Piccadilly, fronting the Green Park, and through the
many windows of its ground-floor smoking-room the public were privileged
to see at all hours of the day numbers of Stoics