“That is quite true,” said Lady Markham, gravely. “I enter into your feelings. You don’t think that the game is worth the candle? I have heard so many people say so--even among those who were very well able to push themselves, Captain Gaunt. I have heard them say that any little thing they might have gained was not worth the expenditure and trouble of a season in London--besides all the risks.” Captain Gaunt listened to this with his discouraged look. He made no reply to Lady Markham, but turned to Frances with a sort of smile. “Do you remember,” he said, “I told you my mother had found a cheap place in Switzerland, such as she delights in? I think I shall go and join them there.” “Oh, I am very sorry,” said Frances, with a countenance of unfeigned regret. “No doubt Mrs Gaunt will be glad to have you; but she will be sorry too. Don’t you think she would rather you stayed your full time in London, and enjoyed yourself a little? I feel sure she would like that best.” “But I don’t think I am enjoying myself,” he said, with the air of a man who would like to be persuaded. He had perhaps been a little piqued by Lady Markham’s way of taking him at his word. “There must be a great deal to enjoy,” said Frances; “every one says so. They think there is no place like London. You cannot have exhausted everything in a week, Captain Gaunt. You have not given it a fair trial. Your mother and the General, they would not like you to run away.” “Run away! no,” he said, with a little start; “that is what I should not do.” “But it would be running away,” said Frances, with all the zeal of a partisan. “You think you are not doing any good, and you forget that they wished you to have a little pleasure too. They think a great deal of London. The General used to talk to me, when I thought I should never see it. He used to tell me to wait till I had seen London; everything was there. And it is not often you have the chance, Captain Gaunt. It may be a long time before you come from India again; and think if you told any one out there you had only been a week in town!” He listened to her very devoutly, with an air of giving great weight to those simple arguments. They were more soothing to his pride, at least, than the way in which her mother took him at his word. “Frances speaks,” said Lady Markham--and while she spoke, the sound of Markham’s hansom was heard dashing up to the door--“Frances speaks as if she were in the interest of all the people who prey upon visitors in London. I think, on the whole, Captain Gaunt, though I regret your going, that my reason is with you rather than with her. And, my dear, if Captain Gaunt thinks this is right, it is not for his friends to persuade him against his better judgment.” “What is Gaunt’s better judgment going to do?” said Markham. “It’s always alarming to hear of a man’s better judgment. What is it all about?”