y him as an anticipation, a sweetmeat which took the bitter taste of
life out of his mouth.

But this letter was more formal, more business-like, than anything that
had gone before. To go to see the woman whom you think of most in the
world, that is a vague thing which other engagements may push aside;
but an invitation to go for the partridges is business and has to be
answered. Dick got it at his club, where he was lingering though it was
September, making little runs into the country, but avoiding his home,
where he knew many questions would be put to him about what he was going
to do. It is a sad thing when there is nobody who cares what you are
going to do--but this is not the view of the matter most apparent to
young men. Dick very much disliked the question. It was not one to which
he could give any reply. He was going to do--nothing, unless life and
feeling should be too much for him and he should be driven into doing
what would be a villainy--yes a villainy, though probably no harm would
ever come of it; most probably, almost certainly, no harm would come of
it--and yet it would be a villainy. These were the thoughts that were
with him wherever he went or came. And after he got Mrs. Warrender's
letter they grew harder and harder, more and more urgent. It was this
which took him one day to the rooms of an old gentleman who had not
Dick's reasons for staying in town, but others which were perhaps as
weighty, which were that he was fond of his corner in the club, and not
of much else. His corner in the club, his walk along the streets, his
cosy rooms, and the few old fogies, like himself, sharp as so many
needles, giving their old opinions upon the events of the time with a
humour sharpened by many an experience of the past: who counted every
day only half a day when it was spent out of town. This old gentleman
was a lawyer of very high repute, though he had retired from all active
practice. He was a man who was supposed to know every case that had ever
been on the registers of justice. He had refused the Bench, and he
might even have been, if he would, Attorney-General, but to all these
responsibilities he preferred freedom and his corner at the club. To him
Dick went with a countenance fresh and fair, which contrasted with the
parchment of the old lawyer's face, but a heart like a piece of lead
lying in his breast, weighing down every impulse, which also contrasted
strongly, though no one could see it, with the t