to which he had been thrown by the
ill-timed and ill-worded proposition of his son to enable him to
resume the accustomed tenour of his life, he arrayed himself in his
morning winter costume, and went forth in quest of a lady. So much
was told some few chapters back, but the name of the lady was not
then disclosed. Starting from Victoria Street, Westminster, he walked
slowly across St. James's Park and the Green Park till he came out in
Piccadilly, near the bottom of Park Lane. As he went up the Lane he
looked at his boots, at his gloves, and at his trousers, and saw that
nothing was unduly soiled. The morning air was clear and frosty, and
had enabled him to dispense with the costly comfort of a cab. Mr.
Maule hated cabs in the morning,--preferring never to move beyond the
tether of his short daily constitutional walk. A cab for going out to
dinner was a necessity;--but his income would not stand two or three
cabs a day. Consequently he never went north of Oxford Street, or
east of the theatres, or beyond Eccleston Square towards the river.
The regions of South Kensington and New Brompton were a trouble to
him, as he found it impossible to lay down a limit in that direction
which would not exclude him from things which he fain would not
exclude. There are dinners given at South Kensington which such a man
as Mr. Maule cannot afford not to eat. In Park Lane he knocked at
the door of a very small house,--a house that might almost be called
tiny by comparison of its dimensions with those around it, and then
asked for Madame Goesler. Madame Goesler had that morning gone
into the country. Mr. Maule in his blandest manner expressed some
surprise, having understood that she had not long since returned from
Harrington Hall. To this the servant assented, but went on to explain
that she had been in town only a day or two when she was summoned
down to Matching by a telegram. It was believed, the man said, that
the Duke of Omnium was poorly. "Oh! indeed;--I am sorry to hear
that," said Mr. Maule, with a wry face. Then, with steps perhaps a
little less careful, he walked back across the park to his club. On
taking up the evening paper he at once saw a paragraph stating that
the Duke of Omnium's condition to-day was much the same as yesterday;
but that he had passed a quiet night. That very distinguished but
now aged physician, Sir Omicron Pie, was still staying at Matching
Priory. "So old Omnium is going off the hooks at last," said