"There ain't a many things I'm so sure of as I am of that," answered Mr. Bragg, in his ordinary quiet tones. And then he opened the door and was gone. He went down the stairs, and through the hall, and into the street without being challenged. He shut the street door softly behind him, with a kind of instinct of escape; and marched away rather quickly, but square and steady as ever. After a while he looked at his watch, hesitated, and finally hailed a hansom cab. "Poultry! You can take it easy. I'm not in a hurry," he said to the driver, as he got into the vehicle. Then Mr. Bragg leaned back, and began to think. He had a habit of frequently closing his eyes when meditating, and this habit it was which had impelled him to get into a cab, since a pedestrian in the streets of London could only indulge in it at the risk of his life; and Mr. Bragg had no--not even the most passing--temptation to suicide. He shut his eyes tight now, tilted his hat backward from his forehead, and reviewed the situation. He had behaved very well to May, and was conscious of having behaved well to her; she deserved the best and most considerate treatment; but Mr. Bragg was no angel, and he was extremely angry with Mrs. Dormer-Smith. He felt some irritation--very unreasonably, as he would by-and-by acknowledge--against Mrs. Dobbs--she had been rather exasperatingly in the right. But Mrs. Dormer-Smith had been most exasperatingly in the wrong, and he was very angry with her. Why had she not confessed that she knew nothing at all about her niece's feelings? It was clear she was quite ignorant of them. She had only to say that she could not undertake to answer for May; that would at least have been honest! "I dare say I might have spoken, all the same," Mr. Bragg admitted to himself. "I think p'r'aps I should. I'd got to that point where a man _must_ know for himself what the answer is to that question, and when 'likely' or 'unlikely' won't serve his turn. But I could ha' managed different. I needn't have looked like a Tomnoddy. Trotted out there--making a reg'lar show of a man; not a doubt but what that flunkey knew all about it. Woman's a fool!"