Bennett arrived to answer the question. He too had found in anger the solvent of his qualms. He was one of those people who suffer cold tortures in sudden glimpses of their dead selves, and as he had paced up and down the station long after the crowd to meet the London train had dispersed he saw himself in his old relation with his betrothed, callow, docile, sheep-like; in a word, unfledged. The day on the river with Serge and Annette--(the rest counted for nothing in his memory of it)--had wrought a greater change in him that he knew. The shrill resentment at his old self that suddenly swept through and took possession of him was his first intimation of it. It was rather more than he could bear, and he shifted the burden of his animosity from himself to Gertrude. If she had not come by the train, well and good. She might perhaps have been kept in London, though a telegram could have saved him from the discomfort of a long wait at the station. He had risked incurring the displeasure of his senior at the office to please her. If she had come and had not looked out for him, that was not lightly to be borne. His anger was just. She should be made to feel that he was not--so he phrased it--"dirt beneath her feet." He resolved that he would not go to Fern Square until she wrote to him. This resolve oozed away almost as soon as it was made. He had no money to pay for an evening's entertainment, and, if he did not go to Fern Square he must perforce go home and spend the evening with his mother and sisters. The hobgoblin opened the door to him. "Has Miss Gertrude returned?" he asked. "Oopstairs," said the hobgoblin, and she shuffled away to the kitchen, leaving him to close the door. He went upstairs to find the whole family assembled, with the exception of Frederic, who was at the Clibran-Bells. They all seemed so jolly that he felt that he had done wrong in coming and wished he had adhered to his first resolve. He felt that he was intruding, and by sheer force of the numbers present his old part of the humble, devoted and grateful lover was pressed upon him. In no other rôle could he find room in the company. Once again circumstances had played into Gertrude's hands and she became, what to her family she had always been, the romantic mistress of an unhappy lowly lover. Before very long their own skill in the playing of these parts and the general feeling of the family had driven them out of the room into the peace and solitude of the study. There silence fell upon them and they stole uneasy glances at each other. Gertrude sat in her father's great chair, Bennett stood with his back against the mantelpiece under the portrait of Gertrude's paternal grandmother. "I went to meet you," said Bennett at length. "I didn't see you." "If you had looked for me you must have seen me. I am tall enough." There was considerable irritation behind his words. "Am I then," said Gertrude, "am I so very short that you could not see me?"