manage to catch
a Baronet; and I have met a Peer there. On that august occasion
Musselboro was absent."

So instructed, Eames, on entering that room, looked round at once for
Mr. Musselboro. "If I don't see the whiskers and chain," he had said,
"I shall know there's a Peer." Mr. Musselboro was in the room, but
Eames had descried Mr. Crosbie long before he had seen Mr. Musselboro.

There was no reason for confusion on his part in meeting Crosbie.
They had both loved Lily Dale. Crosbie might have been successful,
but for his own fault. Eames had on one occasion been thrown into
contact with him, and on that occasion had quarrelled with him and
had beaten him, giving him a black eye, and in this way obtaining
some mastery over him. There was no reason why he should be ashamed
of meeting Crosbie; and yet, when he saw him, the blood mounted
all over his face, and he forgot to make any further search for Mr
Musselboro.

"I am so much obliged to Mr. Dalrymple for bringing you," said Mrs
Dobbs Broughton very sweetly, "only he ought to have come sooner.
Naughty man! I know it was his fault. Will you take Miss Demolines
down? Miss Demolines,--Mr. Eames."

Mr. Dobbs Broughton was somewhat sulky and had not welcomed our hero
very cordially. He was beginning to think that Conway Dalrymple gave
himself airs and did not sufficiently understand that a man who
had horses at Market Harboro' and '41 Lafitte was at any rate as
good as a painter who was pelted with gilt sugar-plums for painting
countesses. But he was a man whose ill-humour never lasted long, and
he was soon pressing his wine on Johnny Eames as though he loved him
dearly.

But there was yet a few minutes before they went down to dinner, and
Johnny Eames, as he endeavoured to find something to say to Miss
Demolines,--which was difficult, as he did not in the least know Miss
Demolines' line of conversation,--was aware that his efforts were
impeded by thoughts of Mr. Crosbie. The man looked older than when he
had last seen him,--so much older that Eames was astonished. He was
bald, or becoming bald; and his whiskers were grey, or were becoming
grey, and he was much fatter. Johnny Eames, who was always thinking
of Lily Dale, could not now keep himself from thinking of Adolphus
Crosbie. He saw at a glance that the man was in mourning, though
there was nothing but his shirt-studs by which to tell it; and he
knew that he was in mourning for his wife. "I wish she might have