“What a nuisance appointments are!” he said, with a boyish frankness of discontent which was irresistible. “I wish I could stay a little longer, but I know I oughtn’t.” He laughed quite ruefully, and fixed a pair of ardent eyes on Miss Pomeroy’s demurely averted face. “It’s been such an awfully jolly affair, hasn’t it? And it’s so awfully jolly to have you in town again”--this, with delightful deference, to Mrs. Pomeroy. “Well, I really must go, you know! Good-bye! Perhaps you won’t be staying very much longer?” “If you stay here bemoaning yourself very much longer we shall probably leave before you do!” suggested Miss Pomeroy, with the rather faint smile which was the only sign of amusement she ever gave, and which always accompanied her own mild witticisms. Julian turned to her eagerly. “Now, that’s awfully unkind!” he said. “You won’t bully me like that in Queen Anne Street, will you?” The term “bullying” was so profoundly inapplicable to Miss Pomeroy’s words that its use suggested a certain amount of arrangement rather than absolute spontaneity about Julian’s speech. But exaggeration was the fashion, and not to be commented on. “Come in a very kind frame of mind, won’t you?” he went on pleadingly. “Am I a very violent person?” the girl answered, with the same smile. “Good-bye!” She held out her hand as she spoke, and Julian took it with laughing reluctance. “You are an absolutely heartless person,” he said daringly, “to dismiss me like this! However, I suppose you are right. If you didn’t dismiss me I probably shouldn’t go, and I really ought, you know!” “You’ve told us that before; now do it!” was the answer. “Good-bye!” “Good-bye!” returned Julian, with mock meekness. He shook hands again, which seemed hardly necessary, and then he turned away. But the necessity which enforced his departure had apparently slackened its pressure on him by the time he actually left the house. As he walked away down the street there was no sign about him of that haste which should characterise a man who has lingered to the risking of an appointment, or who has, indeed, any engagement in immediate prospect. The bride and bridegroom had already left, and people were beginning to go, and until he reached the end of the street in which was Mrs. Halse’s house, he was passed every instant by carriages to whose occupants his hat had to be smilingly lifted. Then he turned into a main thoroughfare, and hailed a hansom--still not in the least like a man in a hurry. He gave the cabman an address in the Temple, and was driven away.