ure adjusted itself at once. To some kinds of
success, nothing is so important as the ability to forget--to sweep the
mind free of everything irrelevant and superfluous. Marcella Boyce, and
all connected with her, passed clean out of Wharton's consciousness.
Except that once or twice he said to himself with a passing smile that
it was a good thing he had not got himself into a worse scrape at
Mellor. Good heavens! in what plight would a man stand--a man with his
career to make--who had given Marcella Boyce claims upon him! As well
entangle oneself with the Tragic Muse at once as with that stormy,
unmanageable soul!

So much for a year ago. To-night, however, the past had been thrust back
upon him, both by Lady Selina's talk and by the meeting with Raeburn. To
smart indeed once more under that old ascendency of Raeburn's, was to
be provoked into thinking of Raeburn's old love.

Where was Miss Boyce? Surely her year of hospital training must be up by
now?

He turned into St. James Street, stopped at a door not far from the
Palace end, let himself in, and groped his way to the second floor. A
sleepy man-servant turned out of his room, and finding that his master
was not inclined to go to bed, brought lights and mineral water. Wharton
was practically a teetotaller. He had taken a whim that way as a boy,
and a few experiments in drunkenness which he had made at college had
only confirmed what had been originally perhaps a piece of
notoriety-hunting. He had, as a rule, flawless health; and the
unaccustomed headaches and nausea which followed these occasional
excesses had disgusted and deterred him. He shook himself easily free of
a habit which had never gained a hold upon him, and had ever since found
his abstinence a source both of vanity and of distinction. Nothing
annoyed him more than to hear it put down to any ethical motive. "If I
liked the beastly stuff, I should swim in it to-morrow," he would say
with an angry eye when certain acquaintance--not those he made at Labour
Congresses--goaded him on the point. "As it is, why should I make it, or
chloral, or morphia, or any other poison, my master! What's the
inducement--eh, you fellows?"

_En revanche_ he smoked inordinately.

"Is that all, sir," said his servant, pausing behind his chair, after
candles, matches, cigarettes, and Apollinaris had been supplied in
abundance.

"Yes; go to bed, Williams, but don't lock up. Good-night."

The man departed, and Wharton, g