Yes, that was the sort of woman, he thought to himself as he lay calmly reflecting. What a good face she had! so quiet and calm and self-possessed. Naturally self-possessed; not that firm disgusting imperturbability which your hardened London coquette has, he thought; like that horrible M'Alister, who puts her double eye-glass up to her eyes and coolly surveys women and men alike, as though they were slaves in the Constantinople market, and she the buyer for the Sultan. There certainly was a wonderful charm about Lady Mitford, and, good heavens! think of a man having such a wife as that, and going off to sup with Bligh and Winton, who were simply two empty-headed _roué_ jackasses, and Pontifex, who--Well, it was very lucky that people didn't think alike. Yes, that man Mitford was a lout, a great overgrown-schoolboy sort of fellow, who might be led into any sort of scrapes by--By Jove! that's what Dollamore had said with that horribly cynical grin. And Lady Mitford would have to run the gauntlet of society, as did most women whose husbands went to the bad. Laurence Alsager was a very different man from the Laurence Alsager of two years ago. He wanted something to fill up his leisure time, and he thought he saw his way to it. Dollamore never spoke at random. From his quietly succulent manner Alsager knew that his lordship meant mischief, probably in his own person, at all events hinted plainly enough that--Ah! he would stop all that. He would pit himself against Dollamore, or any of them, and it would be at least a novelty to have a virtuous instead of a vicious end in view. Mitford might be a fool, his wife weak and silly; but there should be no disastrous consequences. Dollamore's prophecy should be unfulfilled, and he, Laurence Alsager, should be the active agent in the matter. Simultaneously with this determination he decided upon deferring his visit to his father, and settling himself in London for a time. He would be on the spot; he would cultivate the acquaintance which Mitford so readily held out to him; he would have the garrison well under surveillance in order carefully to observe the enemy's approach; and--The shower-bath cut short his reflections at this point.