-and he had a great many engagements--he
found that he was obliged to dine at his club on the evenings when he
might have been free; and as this was the only meal which was supposed
to be common, it may be perceived that Phil had little means of meeting
his mother-in-law; and that he should come to see her of his own free
will was unprecedented. Phil Compton had not improved since his
marriage. His nocturnal enjoyments, the noisy parties up-stairs in the
middle of the night, had not helped to dissipate the effect of the
anxieties of the city, which his wife so deplored. Mrs. Dennistoun that
very day, when she came down-stairs in the fresh summer morning to her
early breakfast, had seen through an open door the room up-stairs which
was appropriated to Phil, with a lamp still burning in the daylight,
cards lying strewn about the floor, and all in that direful disorder
which a room so occupied overnight shows in the clear eye of the day.
The aspect of the room had given her a shock almost more startling than
any moral certainty, as was natural to a woman used to all the decorums
and delicacies of a well-ordered life. There is no sin in going late to
bed, or even letting a lamp burn into the day; but the impression that
such a sight makes even upon the careless is always greater than any
mere apprehension by the mind of the midnight sitting, the eager game,
the chances of loss and ruin. She had not been able to get that sight
out of her eyes. Though on ordinary occasions she never entered Phil's
rooms, on this she had stolen in to put out the lamp, with the sensation
in her mind of destroying some evidence against him, which someone less
interested than she might have used to his disadvantage. And she had
sent up the housemaid to "do" the room, with an admonition. "I cannot
have Mr. Compton's rooms neglected," she said. "The gentlemen is always
so late," the housemaid said in self-defence. "I hears them let
themselves out sometimes after we're all up down-stairs." "I don't want
to hear anything about the gentlemen. Do your work at the proper time;
that is all that is asked of you." Phil's servant appeared at the moment
pulling on his coat, with the air of a man who has been up half the
night--which, indeed, was the case, for "the gentlemen" when they came
in had various wants that had to be supplied. "What's up now?" he said
to the housemaid, within hearing of her mistress, casting an insolent
look at the old lady, who belong