"That's too bad!" he exclaimed. "You took advantage of me. You laid a trap. I'm damned if I feel able to apologize!" Glazzard turned away, and it seemed as if he would walk on. But he faced about again abruptly, laughed, held out his hand. "No, it is I who should apologize. I did lay a trap, and it was too bad. But I wished to know your real opinion." No one more pliable than Denzil. At once he took the hand that was offered and pressed it heartily. "I'm a blundering fellow. Do come and spend an hour with me to-night. From eleven to twelve. I dine out with fools, and shall rejoice to see you afterwards." "Thanks, I can't. I go up to town by the 7.15." They were in a suburban road, and at the moment some ladies approached. Quarrier, who was acquainted with them, raised his hat and spoke a few hasty words, after which he walked on by Glazzard's side. "My opinion," he said, "is worth very little. I had no right whatever to express it, having such slight evidence to go upon. It was double impertinence. If _you_ can't be trusted to choose a wife, who could? I see that--now that I have made a fool of myself." "Don't say any more about it," replied the other, in a good-natured voice. "We have lived in the palace of truth for a few minutes, that's all." "So you go to Sicily. There you will be in your element. Live in the South, Glazzard; I'm convinced you will be a happier man than in this mill-smoke atmosphere. You have the artist's temperament; indulge it to the utmost. After all, a man ought to live out what is in him. Your wedding will be here, of course?" "Yes, but absolutely private." "You won't reject me when I offer good wishes? There is no man living who likes you better than I do, or is more anxious for your happiness. Shake hands again, old fellow. I must hurry off." So they parted, and in a couple of hours Glazzard was steaming towards London. He lay back in the corner of a carriage, his arms hanging loose, his eyes on vacancy. Of course he had guessed Quarrier's opinion of the marriage he was making; he could imagine his speaking to Lilian about it with half-contemptuous amusement. The daughter of a man like Mumbray--an unformed, scarcely pretty girl, who had inherited a sort of fortune from some soap-boiling family--what a culmination to a career of fastidious dilettantism! "He has probably run through all his money," Quarrier would add. "Poor old fellow! he deserves better things."