Mr. Flexor was by nature mendacious; indeed his employers used pleasantly to remark, that when he did not lie, it was simply by accident; but in what he had mentioned to Charley Potts about Geoffrey Ludlow's visits to the nameless female then resident in his, Flexor's, house, he had merely spoken the truth. To be sure there had been an _arrière pensée_ in his remark; the fact being that Flexor objected to matrimony as an institute amongst his patrons. He found that by an artist in a celibate state beer was oftener sent for, donations of cigars were more frequent, cupboards were more constantly unlocked, and irregularities of attendance on his part, consequent on the frivolities of the preceding night, were more easily overlooked, than when there was a lady to share confidence and keys, and to regard all models, both male and female, as "horrid creatures." But although Mr. Flexor had spoken somewhat disparagingly of Geoffrey's frequent visits, and had by his hints roused up a certain amount of suspicion in the breasts of Charley Potts and that grim old cynic William Bowker, he was himself far from knowing what real ground for apprehension existed, or how far matters had progressed, at least with one of the parties concerned. For Geoffrey Ludlow was hard hit! In vain he attempted to argue with himself that all he had done, was doing, and might do, was but prompted by benevolence. A secret voice within him told him that his attempts at self-deceit were of the feeblest, and that, did he but dare to confess it, he knew that there was in this woman whom he had rescued from starvation an attraction more potent than he had ever yet submitted to. It was, it may be said, his duty to call and see how she was getting on, to learn that she wanted for nothing, to hear from her own lips that his orders for her comfort had been obeyed; but it was not his duty to sit watching jealously every glance of her eye, every turn of her head, every motion of her lithe fingers. It was _not_ his duty to bear away with him recollections of how she sat when she said this or answered that; of the manner in which, following a habit of hers, she would push back the thick masses of her gleaming hair, and tuck them away behind her pretty ears; or, following another habit, she would drum petulantly on the floor with her little foot, when talking of any thing that annoyed her--as, for instance, Mrs. Flexor's prying curiosity.