r the odd thirty. If she gets it out of me easy,
tell me my name isn't Boodle."

There was much in this that was distasteful to Captain Clavering, but at
last he submitted, and handed over the thirty pounds to his friend. Then
there was considerable doubt whether the ambassador should announce
himself by a note, but it was decided at last that his arrival should
not be expected. If he did not find the lady at home or disengaged on
the first visit, or on the second, he might on the third or the fourth.
He was a persistent, patient little man, and assured his friend that he
would certainly see Madam Gordeloup before a week had passed over their
heads.

On the occasion of his first visit to Mount Street, Sophie Gordeloup was
enjoying her retreat in the Isle of Wight. When he called the second
time she was in bed, the fatigue of her journey on the previous day--the
day on which she had actually risen at seven o'clock in the
morning--having oppressed her much. She had returned in the cab alone,
and had occupied herself much on the same evening. Now that she was to
be parted from her Julie, it was needful that she should be occupied.
She wrote a long letter to her brother--much more confidential than her
letters to him had lately been--telling him how much she had suffered on
his behalf, and describing to him with great energy the perverseness,
malignity, and general pigheadedness of her late friend. Then she wrote
an anonymous letter to Mrs. Burton, whose name and address she had
learned, after having ascertained from Archie the fact of Harry
Clavering's engagement. In this letter she described the wretched wiles
by which that horrid woman Lady Ongar was struggling to keep Harry and
Miss Burton apart. "It is very bad, but it is true," said the diligent
little woman. "She has been seen in his embrace; I know it." After that
she dressed and went out into society--the society of which she had
boasted as being open to her--to the house of some hanger-on of some
embassy, and listened, and whispered, and laughed when some old sinner
joked with her, and talked poetry to a young man who was foolish and
lame, but who had some money, and got a glass of wine and a cake for
nothing, and so was very busy; and on her return home calculated that
her cab-hire for the evening had been judiciously spent. But her
diligence had been so great that when Captain Boodle called the next
morning at twelve o'clock she was still in bed. Had she been i