'Nay, depend upon it, Jerry, you must be much more than any mere friend can be to Ida Beverley; and now, as far as her grief goes, my visit to-day will prove, I think, the turning point.' 'And so Violet actually blundered out with some remark about Desmond.' 'Yes, and that which galled me more was to see him come lounging into the house to visit Clare just as I took my departure, so there _must_ be some truth in what the clubs say.' Jerry Vane did not reply, and his silence seemed to give a marked assent to the surmise, as he had been in London, for some time past, and must, as Chute thought bitterly, know all the _on dits_ of the fashionable world, and he sat also silent, watching the ice in the sherry cobbler melt slowly away. Though Trevor Chute had, with emotions of doubt, regret, and envy, seen Desmond lounging into the house of the Collingwoods on the eventful day of his visit thereto, it did not follow, he thought on reflection, that he visited there daily. Nor was it so. It was the height of a crowded and brilliant London season, and the Brigade had to undergo what that branch of the service deem 'hard work.' There were guards of honour for Royal drawing-rooms; escort duty; heavy morning drills at Wormwood Scrubs; the daily ride in the Lady's Mile; polo at Lillie Bridge; perhaps a match with the Coldstreams at Lord's; a Bacchanalian water party and a nine o'clock dinner at Richmond with some of the pets of the Opera; midnight receptions and later waltzes; at homes, and so forth: thus the time of Desmond was pretty well filled up; and yet at many of these places he had ample opportunities for meeting Clare, and being somewhat of a privileged dangler, without committing himself so far as a special visit might imply. All was over between Clare Collingwood and Trevor Chute; yet the interest of the latter in her and her future was irrepressible. Two days passed, and he remained in great doubt what to do: whether to accept Ida's piteous and pressing invitation to call on _her_, heedless, of course, though not forgetting it, of Violet's proposal that he should escort her in the Park when Clare rode with Desmond. And now he began to think that to remain in London, where there would be daily chances of seeing Clare, would be but to trifle with his own happiness and that peace of mind which he had been gradually attaining in India, and that he and Jerry Vane should betake themselves to Paris or Brussels, and kill thought as best they could; to this conclusion they came as they sat far into the hours of a sultry summer night over cigars and iced drinks, and resolved that the morrow should see them leave 'the silver streak' behind them. And at that very time, when they were forming their plans, what was Clare about? Could Trevor have seen her then, and known her secret thoughts, perhaps he might have been less decided in his views of foreign travel.