he annoyance he has caused you. Is your carriage
waiting?"

"No," said Lady Newhaven, faintly, quite thrown off the lines of her
prepared scene by the sudden intrusion into it of a foreign body.

"My hansom is below," said Captain Pratt, deferentially, venturing, now
that the situation was, so to speak, draped, to turn his discreet agate
eyes towards Lady Newhaven. "If it could be of the least use, I myself
should prefer to walk."

Now that he looked at her, he looked very hard at her. She was a
beautiful woman.

Lady Newhaven's self-possession had returned sufficiently for her to
take up her fur cloak.

"Thank you," she said, letting Captain Pratt help her on with it. "I
shall be glad to make use of your hansom, if you are sure you can spare
it. I am shocked at having taken possession of your rooms," turning to
Hugh; "I will write to Georgie Streatham to-night. I am staying with my
mother, and I came across to ask him to take my boys to the pantomime,
as I cannot take them myself--so soon," with a glance at her crape.
"Don't come down, Mr. Scarlett. I have given you enough trouble
already."

Captain Pratt's arm was crooked. He conducted her in his best manner to
the foot of the staircase and helped her into his hansom. His manner was
not so unctuous as his father's, but it was slightly adhesive. Lady
Newhaven shuddered involuntarily as she took his arm.

Hugh followed.

"I hope you will both come and see my mother," she said, with an attempt
at graciousness. "You know Lady Trentham, I think?"--to Captain Pratt.

"Very slightly. No. Delighted!" murmured Captain Pratt, closing the
hansom doors in an intimate manner. "And if I could be of the least use
at any time in taking your boys to the pantomime--er--only too glad. The
glass down, Richards!"

The hansom with its splendid bay horse rattled off.

Captain Pratt nodded to Hugh, who was still standing on the steps, and
turned away to buy a box of matches from a passing urchin. Then he
turned up his fur collar, and proceeded leisurely on his way.

"Very stand-off both of them in the past," he said to himself, "but they
will have to be civil in future. I wonder if he will make her keep her
title. Deuced awkward for them both though, only a month after
Newhaven's death. I wish that sort of _contre-temps_ would happen to me
when I'm bringing in a lot of fellows suddenly. An opening like that is
all I want to give me a start, and I should get on as well as anybo