ravely about the necessity of keeping some watch and ward over his
tongue. Then the pipe was re-lit, and a fury of sound arose at the
other end of the room.

So Lavender, forgetful of the true-hearted girl who loved him,
forgetful of his own generous instincts, forgetful of the future
that his fine abilities promised, was still dangling after this alien
woman, and Sheila was left at home, with her troubles and piteous
yearnings and fancies as her only companions? Once upon a time Ingram
could have gone straight up to him and admonished him, and driven him
to amend his ways. But now that was impossible.

What was still possible? One wild project occurred to him for a
moment, but he laughed at it and dismissed it. It was that he should
go boldly to Mrs. Lorraine herself, ask her plainly if she knew what
cruel injury she was doing to this young wife, and force her to turn
Lavender adrift. But what enterprise of the days of old romance could
be compared with this mad proposal? To ride up to a castle, blow
a trumpet, and announce that unless a certain lady were released
forthwith death and destruction would begin,--all that was simple
enough, easy and according to rule; but to go into a lady's
drawing-room without an introduction, and request her to stop a
certain flirtation,--that was a much more awful undertaking. But
Ingram could not altogether dismiss this notion from his head.
Mosenberg went on playing--no longer his practicing-pieces, but all
manner of airs which he knew Ingram liked--while the small sallow man
with the brown beard lay in his easy-chair and smoked his pipe, and
gazed attentively at his toes on the fender.

"You know Mrs. Kavanagh and her daughter, don't you, Mosenberg?" he
said during an interval in the music.

"Not much," said the boy. "They were in England only a little while
before I went to Leipsic."

"I should like to know them."

"That is very easy. Mr. Lavender will introduce you to them: Mrs.
Lavender said he went there very much."

"What would they do, do you think, if I went up and asked to see
them?"

"The servant would ask if it was about beer or coals that you called."

A man will do much for a woman who is his friend, but to be suspected
of being a brewer's traveler, to have to push one's way into a strange
drawing-room, to have to confront the awful stare of the inmates, and
then to have to deliver a message which they will probably consider as
the very extreme of audacious a