“What a relief!” exclaimed Lothair, when once more alone. “I thought I should have sunk into the earth when he first addressed me, and now I would not have missed this meeting for any consideration.” He had not the courage to go into White’s. He was under a vague impression that the whole population of the metropolis, and especially those who reside in the sacred land, bounded on the one side by Piccadilly, and on the other by Pall Mall, were unceasingly talking of his scrapes and misadventures; but he met Lord Carisbrooke and Mr. Brancepeth. “Ah! Lothair,” said Carisbrooke, “I do not think we have seen you this season—certainly not since Easter. What have you been doing with yourself?” “You have been in Egypt?” said Mr. Brancepeth. “The duke was mentioning at White’s to-day that you had returned with his son and Lord St. Aldegonde.” “And does it pay?” inquired Carisbrooke. “Egypt? What I have found generally in this sort of thing is, that one hardly knows what to do with one’s evenings.” “There is something in that,” said Lothair, “and perhaps it applies to other countries besides Egypt. However, though it is true I did return with St. Aldegonde and Bertram, I have myself not been to Egypt.” “And where did you pick them up?” “At Jerusalem.” “Jerusalem! What on earth could they go to Jerusalem for?” said Lord Carisbrooke. “I am told there is no sort of sport there. They say, in the Upper Nile, there is good shooting.” “St. Aldegonde was disappointed. I suppose our countrymen have disturbed the crocodiles and frightened away the pelicans?” “We were going to look in at White’s—come with us.” Lothair was greeted with general kindness; but nobody seemed aware that he had been long and unusually absent from them. Some had themselves not come up to town till after Easter, and had therefore less cause to miss him. The great majority, however, were so engrossed with themselves that they never missed anybody. The Duke of Brecon appealed to Lothair about something that had happened at the last Derby, and was under the impression, until better informed, that Lothair had been one of his party. There were some exceptions to this general unacquaintance with events which an hour before Lothair had feared fearfully engrossed society. Hugo Bohun was doubly charmed to see him, “because we were all in a fright one day that they were going to make you a cardinal, and it turned out that, at the very time they said you were about to enter the conclave, you happened to be at the second cataract. What lies these newspapers do tell!” But the climax of relief was reached when the noble and gray-headed patron of the arts in Great Britain approached him with polished benignity, and said, “I can give you perhaps even later news than you can give me of our friends at Jerusalem. I had a letter from Madame Phoebus this morning, and she mentioned with great regret that you had just left them. Your first travels, I believe?” “My first.”