hat, Mortimer?'

'And yet, are you sure that you might not feel (for her sake, I say for
her sake) any slight coldness towards her on the part of--Society?'

'O! You and I may well stumble at the word,' returned Eugene, laughing.
'Do we mean our Tippins?'

'Perhaps we do,' said Mortimer, laughing also.

'Faith, we DO!' returned Eugene, with great animation. 'We may hide
behind the bush and beat about it, but we DO! Now, my wife is something
nearer to my heart, Mortimer, than Tippins is, and I owe her a little
more than I owe to Tippins, and I am rather prouder of her than I ever
was of Tippins. Therefore, I will fight it out to the last gasp, with
her and for her, here, in the open field. When I hide her, or strike
for her, faint-heartedly, in a hole or a corner, do you whom I love next
best upon earth, tell me what I shall most righteously deserve to be
told:--that she would have done well to turn me over with her foot that
night when I lay bleeding to death, and spat in my dastard face.'

The glow that shone upon him as he spoke the words, so irradiated his
features that he looked, for the time, as though he had never been
mutilated. His friend responded as Eugene would have had him respond,
and they discoursed of the future until Lizzie came back. After resuming
her place at his side, and tenderly touching his hands and his head, she
said:

'Eugene, dear, you made me go out, but I ought to have stayed with you.
You are more flushed than you have been for many days. What have you
been doing?'

'Nothing,' replied Eugene, 'but looking forward to your coming back.'

'And talking to Mr Lightwood,' said Lizzie, turning to him with a smile.
'But it cannot have been Society that disturbed you.'

'Faith, my dear love!' retorted Eugene, in his old airy manner, as he
laughed and kissed her, 'I rather think it WAS Society though!'

The word ran so much in Mortimer Lightwood's thoughts as he went home to
the Temple that night, that he resolved to take a look at Society, which
he had not seen for a considerable period.

Chapter 17

THE VOICE OF SOCIETY

Behoves Mortimer Lightwood, therefore, to answer a dinner card from Mr
and Mrs Veneering requesting the honour, and to signify that Mr Mortimer
Lightwood will be happy to have the other honour. The Veneerings have
been, as usual, indefatigably dealing dinner cards to Society, and
whoever desires to take a hand had best be quick about it, for it is
written in t