aving to go up there much
more bitterly than I ever did. You know I like your sister, and,
in his way, Gazebee is a very good fellow; but after three or four
hours, one begins to have had enough of him."

"It can't be much duller than it is--" but Lady Alexandrina stopped
herself before she finished her speech.

"One can always read at home, at any rate," said Crosbie.

"One can't always be reading. However, I have said you would go. If
you choose to refuse, you must write and explain."

When the Sunday came the Crosbies of course did go to St. John's
Wood, arriving punctually at that door which he so hated at half-past
five. One of the earliest resolutions which he made when he first
contemplated the de Courcy match, was altogether hostile to the
Gazebees. He would see but very little of them. He would shake
himself free of that connection. It was not with that branch of the
family that he desired an alliance. But now, as things had gone, that
was the only branch of the family with which he seemed to be allied.
He was always hearing of the Gazebees. Amelia and Alexandrina were
constantly together. He was now dragged there to a Sunday dinner;
and he knew that he should often be dragged there,--that he could
not avoid such draggings. He already owed money to Mortimer Gazebee,
and was aware that his affairs had been allowed to fall into that
lawyer's hands in such a way that he could not take them out again.
His house was very thoroughly furnished, and he knew that the bills
had been paid; but he had not paid them; every shilling had been paid
through Mortimer Gazebee.

"Go with your mother and aunt, de Courcy," the attorney said to the
lingering child after dinner; and then Crosbie was left alone with
his wife's brother-in-law. This was the period of the St. John's
Wood purgatory which was so dreadful to him. With his sister-in-law
he could talk, remembering perhaps always that she was an earl's
daughter. But with Gazebee he had nothing in common. And he felt that
Gazebee, who had once treated him with great deference, had now lost
all such feeling. Crosbie had once been a man of fashion in the
estimation of the attorney, but that was all over. Crosbie, in the
attorney's estimation, was now simply the secretary of a public
office,--a man who owed him money. The two had married sisters, and
there was no reason why the light of the prosperous attorney should
pale before that of the civil servant, who was not very pro