r his
own fashion. Then John Eames went to his own room and answered the
letters which he had in his pocket.

To the club dinner he would not go. "What's the use of paying two
guineas for a dinner with fellows you see every day of your life?"
he said. To Lady Glencora's he would go, and he wrote a line to his
friend Dalrymple proposing that they should go together. And he would
dine with his cousin Toogood in Tavistock Square. "One meets the
queerest people in the world there," he said; "but Tommy Toogood is
such a good fellow himself!" After that he had his lunch. Then he
read the paper, and before he went away he wrote a dozen or two of
private notes, presenting Sir Raffle's compliments right and left,
and giving in no one note a single word of information that could be
of any use to any person. Having thus earned his salary by half-past
four o'clock he got into a hansom cab and had himself driven to
Porchester Terrace. Miss Demolines was at home, of course, and he
soon found himself closeted with that interesting young woman.

"I thought you never would have come." These were the first words she
spoke.

"My dear Miss Demolines, you must not forget that I have my bread to
earn."

"Fiddlestick--bread! As if I didn't know that you can get away from
your office when you choose."

"But, indeed, I cannot."

"What is there to prevent you, Mr. Eames?"

"I'm not tied up like a dog, certainly; but who do you suppose will
do my work if I do not do it myself? It is a fact, though the world
does not believe it, that men in public offices have got something to
do."

"Now you are laughing at me, I know; but you are welcome, if you like
it. It's the way of the world just at present that ladies should
submit to that sort of thing from gentlemen."

"What sort of thing, Miss Demolines?"

"Chaff, as you call it. Courtesy is out of fashion, and gallantry has
come to signify quite a different kind of thing from what it used to
do."

"The Sir Charles Grandison business is done and gone. That's what you
mean, I suppose? Don't you think we should find it very heavy if we
tried to get it back again?"

"I'm not going to ask you to be a Sir Charles Grandison, Mr. Eames.
But never mind all that now. Do you know that that girl has
absolutely had her first sitting for the picture?"

"Has she, indeed?"

"She has. You may take my word for it. I know it as a fact. What a
fool that young man is!"

"Which young man?"

"Which yo