ow the Conservatism
of a Class, in a world of all the evidences showing that there is no
stay to things, comes of the intuitive discernment of its finality. His
mistrust was his own; and Nesta was not; not yet; though a step would
make her his own. Instinct prompting to the step, was a worthless
adviser. It spurred him, nevertheless.

He called at the Club for his cousin Southweare, with whom he was not in
sympathy; and had information that, Southweare said, 'made the girl
out all right.' Girls in these days do things which the sainted
stay-at-homes preceding them would not have dreamed of doing. Something
had occurred, relating to Major Worrell: he withdrew Miss Radnor's name,
acknowledged himself mistaken or amended his report of her, in some
way, not quite intelligible. Dudley was accosted by Simeon Fenellan;
subsequently by Dartrey. There was gossip over the latter gentleman's
having been up before the magistrate, talk of a queer kind of stick,
and Dartrey said, laughing, to Simeon: 'Rather lucky I bled the
rascal';--whatever the meaning. She nursed one of her adorations for
this man, who had yesterday, apparently, joined in a street-fray; so she
partook of the stain of the turbid defacing all these disorderly people.

At his hotel at breakfast the next morning, a newspaper furnished an
account of Captain Dartrey Fenellan's participation in the strife, after
mention of him as nephew of the Earl of Clanconan, 'now a visitor to
our town'; and his deeds were accordant with his birth. Such writing
was enough to send Dudley an eager listener to Colney Durance. What a
people!

Mr. Dartrey Fenellan's card compelled Dudley presently to receive him.

Dartrey, not debarred by considerations, that an allusion to Miss Radnor
could be conveyed only in the most delicately obscure manner, spared him
no more than the plain English of his relations with her. Requested to
come to the Club, at a certain hour of the afternoon, that he might hear
Major Worrell's personal contradiction of scandal involving the young
lady's name, together with his apology, etc., Dudley declined: and he
was obliged to do it curtly; words were wanting. They are hard to find
for wounded sentiments rendered complex by an infusion of policy. His
present mood, with the something new to digest, held the going to Major
Worrell a wrong step; he behaved as if the speaking to Dartrey Fenellan
pledged him hardly less. And besides he had a physical abhorrence, unde