“Mr. Romayne wants to forget the terrific anxiety which he has already suffered over that gorgeous dress of his, and the terrific bill from which he has still to suffer.” Julian’s protestations were as eager and boyish in manner as they were delicate and skilful in matter, and Mrs. Romayne broke in upon them with a laughing apology and a request that Julian would tell the coachman to turn out into Piccadilly and drive to a house in Grosvenor Place. Julian gave the order, and added to it: “You can pull up when you get out of the Park.” Mrs. Romayne took up the words instantly. “Are you not coming with us, bad boy?” she said. “Come and help us pay one call, at any rate. We are going straight home after that to prepare ourselves for the triumphs of the evening by a little refreshing laziness, are we not, Maud?” “I should like to immensely!” returned Julian ardently as Miss Pomeroy smiled a response. “But I’m afraid I must go down to the club. I promised to meet Loring there! Dinner at eight, I suppose?” he added as the carriage drew up and he jumped out. He stepped back on the pavement, lifting his hat as the carriage drove off. Then he jumped into a hansom and gave the word to drive, not to the club but to the Temple. Arrived there he ran upstairs, the excitement about him gaining ground moment by moment, to Marston Loring’s rooms. Loring was there alone. He was seated at the writing-table writing rapidly, his face keen and intent, and he suspended his work for an instant only as he glanced up on the opening of the door and nodded a greeting. Julian’s life for the last month had been lived at that high pressure which is only produced in a man by the consciousness that he has burnt his ships. Every shilling that he had accumulated during the previous six months was invested in the scheme propounded to him a month ago by Marston Loring; and the history of his real life during the interval would have been a history of the stages through which that scheme had passed. The affairs of the Welcome Diamond Mining Company had followed precisely the course indicated by Loring during that first interview on the subject between Loring, Ramsay, and Julian. Shortly after that interview “Welcomes” had fallen to a nominal price; they had then been bought up according to arrangement. A slight rise had followed as a matter of course, followed by an interval of vacillation, and a slow succession of trifling advances, which had again been succeeded by a period of quiet.