“I am sorry to part with you so soon,” he returned. “I do hope that we shall meet again some day, and I should be so glad, Miss Affleck, if in future you could think that Mrs. Chance is not your only friend in the world. Whether we are destined to meet or not again, I should so like you to think that I am also your friend.” “Thank you, Mr. Eden, I shall be glad to think of you as a friend,” she replied with simple frankness. That speech and the glance of shy pleasure which accompanied it almost tempted him to say more, but he hesitated, and finally concluded not to go further just then; and after opening the door for her with her humble latchkey, he shook hands and said good-night. CHAPTER XXIX Before leaving Fan at her own door Mr. Eden did not neglect to make a mental note of the number, although to make it out was not easy owing to the obscure veil that time, weather, and London smoke had thrown over the gilded figures. From Charlotte Street he walked slowly and thoughtfully to his rooms in Albemarle Street. “I feel too tired to go anywhere to-night,” he said. “From the remotest wilds of Notting Hill to the eastern boundaries of Marylebone--a long walk even with such a companion. That young person I took for a lady is an all-round fraud. That delicate style of beauty is very deceptive; she would walk a camel off its legs.” A fire was burning brightly in his sitting-room; and throwing himself into a comfortable easy-chair before it, he lit a cigar, and began to think about things in general. He did not feel quite settled in his London rooms, which he had taken furnished, and in which he had lived off and on for a period of eighteen months. He was always thinking of going abroad again to resume the wanderings which had been prematurely ended by the tidings of his father's death. But he was indolent, a lover of pleasure, with plenty of money, and a year and a half had slipped insensibly by. There was no need to do things in a hurry, he said; his inclination was everything: when he had a mind to travel he would travel, and when it suited his mood he would rest at home. He did not care very much about anything. His teachers had failed to make anything of him. His father, who had retired from the military profession rather early in life, had wished him to go into the army; but he was not urgent, speaking to him less like a father to a son than a middle-aged gentleman to a young friend in whom he took a considerable interest, but who was his own master. “It's all very well to say 'Go into the army,'” his son would answer; “but I can't do it in the way you did, and I strongly object to the competitive system.” And so the matter ended. It was perhaps in a great measure due to his easygoing, unambitious character that he had not taken actively to evil courses. The poet is no doubt right when he says: Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands to do.