They were well-dressed men of the upper classes. Their clothes proclaimed them--for there will be (unwritten) sumptuary laws for many years in England yet. Their voices and intonation stamped them as members of the upper classes. A railway porter, a duke, or the Wordingham solicitor would alike have placed them with absolute certainty. They were laughing and talking together with bright, animated faces, and in this masked life that we all lead to-day no single person could have guessed at the forces and tragedies at work beneath. They sat down in a long room with a good carpet upon the floor, dull green walls hung with elaborate pictures advertising whiskeys, in gold frames, and comfortable leather chairs grouped in threes round tables with tops of hammered copper. Mr. Helzephron did everything in a most up-to-date fashion--as he could well afford. "The most select lounge in the county" was a minor heading upon the hotel note-paper. At one end of the room was a semicircular counter, upon which were innumerable regiments of tumblers and wine-glasses and three or four huge crystal vessels of spirits, tulip-shaped, with gilded inscriptions and shining plated taps. Behind the counter was Miss Molly Palmer, the barmaid of the hotel, and, behind her, the alcove was lined with mirrors and glass shelves on which were rows of liqueur flasks, bottles of brandy and dummy boxes of chocolates tied up with scarlet ribands. "Now tell me, Dicker," Lothian said, lighting a cigarette, "how do you mean about Toftrees?" The glamour of the past was on the unstable youth now, the same influence which had made him--at some possible risk to himself--defend Lothian so warmly in the drawing room at Bryanstone Square. The splendour of Toftrees was far away, dim in Lancaster Gate. "Oh, he's jealous of you because you really can write, Gilbert! That must be it. But he really has got his knife into you!" Internally, Lothian winced. "Oh, but I assure you he has not," was all that he said. Ingworth finished his whiskey and soda. "Well, you know what I mean, old chap," he replied. "He's going about saying that you aren't sincere, that you're really fluffed when you write your poems, don't you know. The other night, at a supper at the Savoy, where I was, he said you were making a trade of Christianity, that you didn't really believe in what you wrote, and couldn't possibly." Lothian laughed. "Have another whiskey," he said. "And what did you say, Dicker?" There was a sneer in Lothian's voice which the other was quite quick to hear and to resent. On that occasion he had not defended his friend, as it happened. "Oh, I said you meant well," Ingworth answered with quick impertinence, and then, afraid of what he had done hurriedly drained the second glass which the barmaid had just brought him. "Well, I do, really," Lothian replied, so calmly that the younger man was deceived, and once more angry that his shaft had glanced upon what seemed to be impenetrable armour.