"Don't quarrel!" That was all very well; but what else was there to do? It was impossible for him to go on drinking champagne and smoking cigarettes till he died. Finally, he tried London and a round of the theatres and music-halls. He amused himself immensely and was never for one instant content. He played bridge at the club, and went no trumps until a choleric old gentleman remarked that it was no wonder he had such a dislike to the Day of Judgment. Whereupon he laughed and played no more. Then he sought out Mr. Hirsch, and went gold-bugging in the city, but after dining _en petit comité_ with many Jews, Turks, Infidels and Heretics at every smart set restaurant in London, at every one of which Mr. Hirsch called the waiters by their names as if they were his own servants, he gave it up in sheer disgust, and tried to feel an interest in the Grand National, even to the extent of allowing himself to bet freely with his friends. He did everything in fact that a man can do to please himself, short of buying cheap or dear kisses; and even that he might have done, being for the time quite reckless, but for the fact he was soul-weary of womanhood, her ways and works. Finally he went back to Blackborough and felt the first really keen and natural emotion of which he had been capable for a month, when he met Ted Cruttenden by chance in the street. "I hope your wife is quite well," he said sedately, feeling then and there a desire to throttle his successful rival. It was a most wholesome feeling, he recognised, for it sent the blood coursing through his veins once more in honest antagonism to something of which he disapproved. Ted seemed to feel this antagonism pierce through him, decorously dressed in a black business suit though he was, for he said hurriedly--"Oh! all right. Won't you come into the office for a moment. I--I should like to speak to you." Ned, regarding himself once more from the outside, felt vaguely amused, and acquiesced. "Of course," began Ted, for his part feeling absolutely a somewhat ill-used and thoroughly misunderstood man, "I know the whole affair must seem, as it were underhand; but--" he looked doubtfully at his companion as if uncertain how much he knew, before resolving on the whole truth as safest. "I suppose you know now, or guess, that when you came here last Aura and I were engaged. Well! it was so. Your coming and telling me you had asked her, put me in an awful hole for I had no right, on my part, to tell you--anything. The whole affair was strictly private, I hope you understand." "I understand that you wished it to be private," remarked Ned clearly.