"I never heard of her till yesterday, and Caroline has gone to call on her to-day. It's rather a bore for her, for they live somewhere half-way to Harrow, I believe. Half-past seven. Good-bye, old fellow. I ought to have been before Baron Brawl at Westminster twenty minutes since." And so the solicitor-general, rushing out from the Temple, threw himself into a cab; and as the wheels rattled along the Strand, he made himself acquainted with the contents of his brief. Why should Caroline have expressed a wish to see him? That was the thought that chiefly rested in Bertram's mind when Sir Henry left him. Why should it be an object to her to force a meeting between her and him? Would it not be better for them both that they should be far as the poles asunder? "Well," he said to himself, "if it be no difficulty to her, neither shall it be a difficulty to me. She is strong-minded, and I will be so no less. I will go and meet her. It is but the first plunge that gives the shock." And thus he closed his work, and sat moodily thinking. He was angry with her in that she could endure to see him; but, alas! half-pleased also that she should wish to do so. He had no thought, no most distant thought, that she could ever now be more to him than the wife of an acquaintance whom he did not love too well. But yet there was in his heart some fragment of half-satisfied vanity at hearing that she did look forward to see him once again. And how shall we speak of such a wish on her part? "Caroline," her husband had said to her at breakfast, "it will be all nonsense for you and George Bertram to keep up any kind of quarrel. I hate nonsense of that sort." "There is no quarrel between us," she replied. "There ought to be none; and I shall get him to come here." The colour of her face became slightly heightened as she answered: "If you wish it, Sir Henry, and he wishes it also, I shall not object." "I do wish it, certainly. I think it absolutely necessary as regards my position with your grandfather." "Do just as you think best," said his wife. 'Twas thus that Lady Harcourt had expressed her desire to see George Bertram at her house. Had he known the truth, that fragment of half-satisfied vanity would have been but small.