not
brilliant. Not brilliant, that is, as Mrs. Price used that term. Still
it was sufficient to remove him from the menagerie of paupers in which
she had classed him. Assured whereof, Mrs. Price, pocketing further
objections, gave in. Two months by the clock after the episodes at
Narragansett she assisted at his marriage to her daughter. A little
later Annandale took a house in Gramercy Park.

This house, leased fully furnished from November to June, Fanny
selected. She liked the neighborhood. Annandale, whose bachelor
quarters had, of course, been given up, liked it too. It was
convenient. He had got an idea that he ought to have something to do.
The something which he hit on consisted in going downtown every day
and standing, in a broker's office, over a ticker. Such were the
quantities of stupid money afloat that the ticker was very loquacious.
It talked and talked, generally in jumps. As it jumped Annandale
bought. As it continued to jump, he made. Whereupon he regarded
himself as a born financier. It was an illusion which that year very
many men shared.

But the illusion was agreeable to him. It was equally so to Fanny. It
took him out of the way and induced pleasant dreams. He talked of
drags and yachts. On fifty thousand a year these things are
impossibilities. But Annandale, believing himself a born financier,
believed, too, that the day was not remote when they would solidify
into facts. Pending which, Fanny, from her own carriage, distributed
to Annette, Juliette and the rest of them such orders as she liked.

It was in this carriage that Marie had seen her with Loftus. Others
also saw her. Fanny being a little more than a bride and Loftus a good
deal more than a beau, the spectacle caused comment. There were,
though, other things that the future had in charge which were to cause
more. But among those who beheld the particular spectacle was Fanny's
husband.

Annandale was in a hansom with Mr. Skitt, the broker in whose office
he looked over the tape. As Fanny drove by, Annandale raised his hat,
then, with a mimic which he meant to be humorously indignant, he shook
his stick at Loftus much as though he were saying, "Aha! making up to
my wife!"

Loftus entering into the spirit of the jest, ducked his head in
feigned alarm.

"That's a deuced pretty woman," remarked Mr. Skitt when the carriage
had passed.

"It is Mrs. Annandale," his client returned with some hauteur.

"Oh, beg pardon, I didn't know."