nd by him, immersed in the still, green water, a
sea-nymph lying on her back, with her hand on her naked breast. She has
a half-smile on her face--a smile of hopeless surrender and of secret
joy.

Seated by Swithin's side, Irene may have been smiling like that.

When, warmed by champagne, he had her all to himself, he unbosomed
himself of his wrongs; of his smothered resentment against the new
chef at the club; his worry over the house in Wigmore Street, where the
rascally tenant had gone bankrupt through helping his brother-in-law as
if charity did not begin at home; of his deafness, too, and that pain he
sometimes got in his right side. She listened, her eyes swimming under
their lids. He thought she was thinking deeply of his troubles, and
pitied himself terribly. Yet in his fur coat, with frogs across the
breast, his top hat aslant, driving this beautiful woman, he had never
felt more distinguished.

A coster, however, taking his girl for a Sunday airing, seemed to have
the same impression about himself. This person had flogged his donkey
into a gallop alongside, and sat, upright as a waxwork, in his shallopy
chariot, his chin settled pompously on a red handkerchief, like
Swithin's on his full cravat; while his girl, with the ends of a
fly-blown boa floating out behind, aped a woman of fashion. Her swain
moved a stick with a ragged bit of string dangling from the end,
reproducing with strange fidelity the circular flourish of Swithin's
whip, and rolled his head at his lady with a leer that had a weird
likeness to Swithin's primeval stare.

Though for a time unconscious of the lowly ruffian's presence, Swithin
presently took it into his head that he was being guyed. He laid his
whip-lash across the mares flank. The two chariots, however, by some
unfortunate fatality continued abreast. Swithin's yellow, puffy face
grew red; he raised his whip to lash the costermonger, but was saved
from so far forgetting his dignity by a special intervention of
Providence. A carriage driving out through a gate forced phaeton and
donkey-cart into proximity; the wheels grated, the lighter vehicle
skidded, and was overturned.

Swithin did not look round. On no account would he have pulled up to
help the ruffian. Serve him right if he had broken his neck!

But he could not if he would. The greys had taken alarm. The phaeton
swung from side to side, and people raised frightened faces as they went
dashing past. Swithin's great arms,