Fenwick said to him, as they stood on Iggulden's threshold and doormat respectively--presuming rashly, on imperfect information, to delay farewells--"Now look here, Conrad, my dear boy (I like your name Conrad), don't you go and boil over to Sally to-morrow, nor next day. You'll only spoil the rest of your stay, maybe.... What! well--what I mean is that nothing I say prejudices the kitten. You'll understand that, I'm sure?" "Perfectly. Of course, if Sally were to say she knew somebody she would like a deal better, there's no reason why she shouldn't.... I mean _I_ couldn't complain." "Yes--yes! I see. You'd exonerate her. Good boy! Very proper." And indeed the doctor had felt, as the words passed his lips, that he was rather a horrid liar. But the point didn't matter. Fenwick laughed it off: "Just you take my advice, and refer the matter to the kitten the last day you're here. Monday, won't it be? And don't think about it!" "Oh no! I'm a philosophical sort of chap, I am! Never in extremes. Good-night!" "I see. _Sperat infestis metuit secundis alteram sortem bene praeparatum pectus_--Horace." Fenwick ran this through in a breath; and the doctor, a little hazy in school-memories of the classics, said, "What's that?" and began translating it--"The bosom well prepared for either lot, fears...." Fenwick caught him up and completed the sentence: "Fears what is good, and hopes for what is not. Cut away to bed, old chap, and sleep sound...." Then he paused a moment, as he saw the doctor looking a question at him intently, and just about to speak it. He answered it before it came: "No, no! Nothing more. I mean to forget all about it, and take my life as it stands. Bother Mr. Harrisson!" He dropped his voice to say this; then raised it again. "Don't you fret about me, doctor. Remember, I'm Algernon Fenwick! Good-night!" "Good-night!" And then the doctor, with the remains of heart-turmoil in him, and a brain reeling, more or less, went up into what he conceived to be an empty dark room, and was disconcerted by an ill-used murmur in the darkness--a meek, submissive voice of one accustomed to slights: "I told her to blow it out and go to bed. It is all--quite--right, my dear. So do not complain. Now help me with my things, and I will get to bed." "My dear mother! I _am_ so sorry. I had no idea you had not gone long ago!"