with rage to think of how he
might be exhibiting himself before Powys and his sister.

It was half-past nine when a carriage drove up to the door. Into this
Mr. Powys presently handed Georgiana and Emilia. Braintop followed the
ladies, and then the coachman received his instructions and drove away.
Forthwith Wilfrid started in pursuit. He calculated that if his wind
held till he could jump into a light cab, his legitimate prey Braintop
might be caught. For, "they can't be taking him to any party with them!"
he chose to think, and it was a fair calculation that they were simply
conducting Braintop part of his way home. The run was pretty swift.
Wilfrid's blood was fired by the pace, until, forgetting the traitor
Braintop, up rose Truth from the bottom of the well in him, and he felt
that his sole desire was to see Emilia once more--but once! that night.
Running hard, in the midst of obstacles, and with eye and mind fined
on one object, disasters befell him. He knocked apples off a stall, and
heard vehement hallooing behind: he came into collision with a gentleman
of middle age courting digestion as he walked from his trusty dinner at
home to his rubber at the Club: finally he rushed full tilt against
a pot-boy who was bringing all his pots broadside to the flow of the
street. "By Jove! is this what they drink?" he gasped, and dabbed
with his handkerchief at the beer-splashes, breathlessly hailing the
looked-for cab, and, with hot brow and straightened-out forefinger,
telling the driver to keep that carriage in sight. The pot-boy had to
be satisfied on his master's account, and then on his own, and away
shot Wilfrid, wet with beer from throat to knee--to his chief protesting
sense, nothing but an exhalation of beer! "Is this what they drink?" he
groaned, thinking lamentably of the tastes of the populace. All idea
of going near Emilia was now abandoned. An outward application of beer
quenched his frenzy. She seemed as an unattainable star seen from the
depths of foul pits. "Stop!" he cried from the window.

"Here we are, sir," said the cabman.

The carriage had drawn up, and a footman's alarum awakened one of
the houses. The wretched cabman had likewise drawn up right under the
windows of the carriage. Wilfrid could have pulled the trigger of a
pistol at his forehead that moment. He saw that Miss Ford had recognized
him, and he at once bowed elegantly. She dropped the window, and said,
"You are in evening dress, I think