o
miss them before long, I'm thinking," said Mrs. Van Siever. "And as to
not cashing up, you must remember, Mrs. Van Siever, that ten per cent.
won't come in quite as regularly as four or five. When you go for
high interest, there must be hitches here and there. There must,
indeed, Mrs. Van Siever." "I know all about it," said Mrs. Van Siever.
"If he gave it to me as soon as he got it himself, I shouldn't
complain. Never mind. He's only got to give me my little bit of money
out of the business, and then he and I will be all square. You come
and see Clara this evening, Gus."

Then Mr. Musselboro put Mrs. Van Siever into another cab, and went out
upon 'Change,--hanging about the Bank, and standing in Threadneedle
Street, talking to other men just like himself. When he saw Dobbs
Broughton he told that gentleman that Mrs. Van Siever had been in her
tantrums, but that he had managed to pacify her before she left Hook
Court. "I'm to take the cheque for the five hundred to-night," he
said.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Jael

On the first of March, Conway Dalrymple's easel was put up in Mrs
Dobbs Broughton's boudoir upstairs, the canvas was placed upon it on
which the outlines of Jael and Sisera had been already drawn, and Mrs
Broughton and Clara Van Siever and Conway Dalrymple were assembled
with the view of steady art-work. But before we see how they began
their work together, we will go back for a moment to John Eames on
his return to his London lodgings. The first thing every man does
when he returns home after an absence, is to look at his letters, and
John Eames looked at his. There were not very many. There was a note
marked immediate, from Sir Raffle Buffle, in which Sir R had scrawled
in four lines a notification that he should be driven to an extremity
of inconvenience if Eames were not at his post at half-past nine on
the following morning. "I think I see myself there at that hour,"
said John. There was a notification of a house dinner, which he was
asked to join, at his club, and a card for an evening gathering
at Lady Glencora Palliser's,--procured for him by his friend
Conway,--and an invitation for dinner at the house of his uncle, Mr
Toogood; and there was a scented note in the handwriting of a lady,
which he did not recognise. "My nearest and dearest friend, M. D.
M.," he said, as he opened the note and looked at the signature. Then
he read the letter from Miss Demolines.

MY DEAR MR EAMES,

Pray