"No; she kept out of the way. That looks bad, doesn't it? No doubt she was a tawdry vulgar creature. But a man never notices that!" At this moment two people were seen approaching. One of them was a man of middle height and perhaps five-and-thirty years of age; he was stout and thick-built; he had a fat face with bulging cheeks; his eyes were rather like a frog's; he leant very much forward as he walked, and swayed gently from side to side with a rolling swagger; and as his body rolled, his eye rolled too, and he looked this way and that with a jovial leer and a smile of contentment and amusement on his face. The smile and the merry eye redeemed his appearance from blank ugliness, but neither of them indicated a spiritual or exalted mind. By his side walked a girl, dressed, as Mrs. Marland enviously admitted, as really very few women in London could dress, and wearing, in virtue perhaps of the dress, perhaps of other more precious gifts, an air of assured perfection and dainty disdain. She was listening to her companion's conversation, and did not notice Sigismund Taylor, with whom she was well acquainted. "Dear me, who are those, I wonder?" exclaimed Mrs. Marland. "She's very distinguee." "It's Miss Glyn," answered he. "What--Miss Agatha, Glyn?" "Yes," he replied, wondering whether that little coincidence as to the 'Agatha' would suggest itself to anyone else. "Lord Thrapston's granddaughter?" "Yes." "Horrid old man, isn't he?" "I know him very slightly." "And the man--who's he?" "Mr. Calder Wentworth." "To be sure. Why, they're engaged, aren't they? I saw it in the paper." "I'm sure I don't know," said Mr. Taylor, in a voice more troubled than the matter seemed to require. "I saw it in the paper too." "He's no beauty, at any rate; but he's a great match, I suppose?" "Oh, perhaps it isn't true." "You speak as if you wished it wasn't. I've heard about Mr. Wentworth from Victor Sutton--you know who I mean?" and Mrs. Marland proceeded to give some particulars of Calder Wentworth's career. Meanwhile that gentleman himself was telling Agatha Glyn a very humorous story. Agatha did not laugh. Suddenly she interrupted him. "Why don't you ask me more about it?" "I thought you'd tell me if you wanted me to know," he answered. "You are the most insufferable man. Don't you care in the least what I do or where I go?" "Got perfect confidence in you," said Calder politely. "I don't deserve it." "Oh, I daresay not; but it's so much more comfortable for me." "I disappeared--simply disappeared--for a fortnight; and you've never asked where I went, or what I did, or--or anything." "Haven't I? Where did you go?" "I can't tell you." "There, you see! What the dickens was the good of my asking?" "If you knew what I did I suppose you'd never speak to me again." "All right. Keep it dark then, please." "For one tiling, I met--No, I won't." "I never asked you to, you know." They walked on a little way in silence.