Before the last of the dissipated ones has dropped-in to the dry bacon and leathery toast, the remnants of the haddocks, and the _débris_ of the breakfast, the Colonel is driving a dogcart to the station, where the signal for the express to stop is already flying. The equanimity which the old warrior has sustained in the presence of his friends deserts him a little now when there is no one near him save a stolid-faced groom who is gazing vacantly over the adjacent country. His annoyance does not vent itself on the horse--he is too good a whip for that--but he "pishes!" and "pshaws!" and is very short and sharp with the groom demanding orders as he leaves his master at the station; and when he has been sucked-up, as it were, into the train, which is again thundering on its townward way, he takes a letter from his pocket, and daintily adjusting his natty double-eyeglass on his nose, reads it through and through. "This is the infernal nuisance of having to make women allies in matters of this kind," says he softly to himself, laying down the letter and looking out of the window. "They are always doing too much or too little; anything like a _juste milieu_ seems to be utterly impossible to them; and I cannot make out from this girl's rodomontade nonsense whether she has not just overstepped her instructions, and so spoiled what promised to be a remarkably pretty little plot. And yet it was the only thing I could do, and she was the only available person. It was a thousand pities that Clarisse was away from town at the moment; for she is not merely thoroughly trustworthy, but always has her wits about her." When the train arrives in London, the Colonel calls a cab, and is driven to the Beaufort Club, which is still empty and deserted, and where he asks the porter whether certain members, whom he names, had been there lately. Among these names is that of Mr. Derinzy; and on being answered in the negative, he brightens up a little and pursues his way. This time the cabman is directed to drive to the Temple; and at the Temple gates he stops and deposits his fare.