As Colonel Trump says, "There is nothing forbidding to any man, about a fine woman." Geoffery, therefore, now that he had placed more serious concerns in such excellent hands, had no objection to the recreation of a _tête-a-tête_ on the footing of a received lover, with a young woman, whose personal attractions were above mediocrity, and whose modesty was not likely to be troublesome; while from her inferiority of station, her ideas of the high honour conferred on her by the gentleman's addresses were calculated to smooth the way to advances, which an equal might have thought impertinent, or at least premature. When, therefore, Mr. Fips returned, after an absence of full two hours, he found the candle-wicks ominously long, and neither the tea-things nor the lover sent away. Yet Geoffery had not the most distant thought of making Miss Fips his wife; unless, indeed, circumstances compelled him so entirely to commit himself to Mr. Fips, as to be completely in his power, and so make it a matter of prudence to secure his secrecy, by what, with too many, is the only infallible bond of good faith, identity of interest. But, if on the other hand, he should be so fortunate as not to be obliged to make use of Fips, more than as a tool, with which to work up the material in the way of extraordinary combinations of circumstances that fate seemed so liberally to have provided; and that, by the operation of those so worked, he should succeed in obtaining what had so long been the object, though for many years back the hopeless one, of his ambition--the Arden estates, Fips having nothing more to bring against him than surmises that the acquisition was not disagreeable to him--he should set at nought the tears of Miss Fips, and merely keep Fips's tongue at bay, with the agency _at will_: and as that was a thing which some one must have, it was an excellent way of securing the fellow's services first, and even his good behaviour afterwards, on very reasonable terms. For the present, however, while all was yet at stake; while there was no saying what villany might be necessary to carry him through; it was highly politic, to give Fips, at the outset, a motive, which would make him ready to perform any service that might be required of him.