Two days later Mary was unpacking her box at 14 Palace Gardens. No sharpness, no slight now could prick her spirit; she had learned too well; she would not face those streets again. That was eighteen months, close upon two years ago. Wounds were healing now; old-time brightness was coming back to laugh at present discomforts. It was only now and again--as now--that she, driven by some sudden stress, allowed her mind backwards to wander--bruising itself in those dark passages. The cab stopped. She with a start came to the present; gulped a sob; was herself. Mrs. Chater said: “Run in quickly and mix me a brandy-and-soda.” CHAPTER II. Excursions In Vulgarity. A violent dispute with the cabman set that disturbed heart yet more wildly thumping in Mrs. Chater's bosom; the sight of her husband uneasily mooning in the dining-room heated her wrath to wilder bubblings. Mr. Chater--a 'oly dam' terror in Mincing Lane, if his office-boy may be quoted--was an astonishingly mild man in his own house. He said brightly, noting with a shiver the gusty stress of his wife's deportment: “You _drove_ up, my dear?--And quite right, too,” he hastily added, upon a sudden fear that his remark might be interpreted as reproach. “How do you know?” Mrs. Chater's nose went into the brandy-and-soda. “I saw you from the window,” her husband beamed. He repeated, “The window,” and nervously pointed at it. There was a strained atmosphere in the room, and he was a little frightened. “_Oh!_” Out from the brandy-and-soda came the nose; down went the glass with an emphasising bang: “_Oh!_” Mr. Chater gave a startled little jump. He saw, immediately he had spoken, the misfortune into which his admission had plunged him; the bang of the glass twanged his already apprehensive nerves, and he jerked out, “Certainly, my dear,” without any clear grasp as to what he was affirming. “If you had been a _man_,” said Mrs. Chater, speaking with a slow and extraordinary bitterness--“if you had been a _man_, you would have come out and helped me.” “But you had got out when I came to the window, my dear.” “With the _cabman_, I mean.” Mrs. Chater fired the word with alarming ferocity. “With the _cabman_. Did you not see that violent brute insulting me?” It was precisely because he had observed the episode that Mr. Chater had kept well behind the curtain; but he did not adduce the fact. “I certainly did not,” he affirmed. “Ah! I expect you took precious good care not to. You've done the same thing before. Never to my dying day shall I forget the figure you cut outside Swan and Edgar's last Christmas. Making me--” Mr. Chater implored: “Oh, my dear, don't drag that up again!” “But I _do_ drag it up!” Mrs. Chater a little unnecessarily cried. “I _do_ drag it up, and I shall always drag it up--making me a fool as you did! I was ashamed of you. I was--”