"O, indeed! business, I suppose?" Robert Streightley started as though he had been shot. What else could he have expected? Did he anticipate a few tender words of regret at his necessitated absence; a tear or two dimming the bright eyes; a little pouting or peevishness at being left alone? Did he imagine that his wife might have made some inquiry as to the nature of the business which caused him to absent himself for twenty-four hours from his home? Such might have been the case in those preposterous matches which are arranged thoughtlessly and frivolously by two young people without calling their elders into council--in those ridiculous unions of hearts. But there was nothing in Robert Streightley's bargain, no clause in his bond, to warrant his expectation of any thing of the kind. "To have and to hold," certainly; but to create sympathy, to awaken interest--no mention of either of these superfluities in the marriage-contract. So he simply said, "Yes, dear; business;" and laid his lips to her cheek, and ordered his clothes to be packed, and drove away to the station. He was uncomfortable, vacillating, wretched, all through the journey; but he became his old self as he entered his offices. As the door of his private room closed behind him, as he marked the letters lying unopened on his desk, as he took his seat in the birch-framed, cane-bottomed chair which had been his seat ever since he first assumed his junior partnership, and as he saw old Foster standing at his elbow, with his paper of memoranda in his hand ready to read from,--Robert Streightley felt more genuine pleasure than he had for months. The mere fact of there being a difficulty--a hitch--something towards the elucidation of which the play of his business talents might tend--gave him life; the _gaudia certaminis_ inspired him; and he set to work with such a zest, that old Foster, who had been shaking his head dolefully for the past few months, and thinking to himself--he would not have breathed such an opinion for the world--that the glories of the great house of Streightley and Son were on the wane, took fresh heart, and indulged that evening in the enormity of an extra half-pint of stout at the chop-house where he took his dinner, in token of his delight. Robert Streightley had not been more than a couple of hours at work, when a junior clerk entered, and told him that Mr. Guyon was outside in a cab, and had called to know if Mr. Streightley was in town. Bidden to show Mr. Guyon in, the junior clerk retired, immediately returning with Mr. Guyon, looking ten years younger than when Robert had last seen him; with his brown-black whiskers, and hair a little red-rusty from travel; with the strong trace of a silvery beard; with a rakish Glengarry cap on his head, a travelling suit and a courier's bag on his body. He entered with his usual impulsive bound, and had Streightley by both hands almost before the latter knew he had entered.