“Not a word until then,” Seaman whispered back. “I must not seem to be hanging after you too much--I really did not want to come--but the matter is urgent.” “We can send Mangan to bed early,” Dominey suggested. “I am the early bird myself,” was the weary reply. “I was up all last night. To-morrow morning will do.” Dinner that night was a pleasant and social meal. Mr. Mangan especially was uplifted. Everything to do with the Domineys for the last fifteen years had reeked of poverty. He had really had a hard struggle to make both ends meet. There had been disagreeable interviews with angry tenants, formal interviews with dissatisfied mortgagees, and remarkably little profit at the end of the year to set against these disagreeable episodes. The new situation was almost beatific. The concluding touch, perhaps, was in Parkins' congratulatory whisper as he set a couple of decanters upon the table. “I have found a bin of Cockburn's _fifty-one_, sir,” he announced, including the lawyer in his confidential whisper. “I thought you might like to try a couple of bottles, as Mr. Mangan seems rather a connoisseur, sir. The corks appear to be in excellent condition.” “After this,” Mr. Mangan sighed, “it will be hard to get back to the austere life of a Pall Mall club!” Seaman, very early in the evening, pleaded an extraordinary sleepiness and retired, leaving his host and Mangan alone over the port. Dominey, although an attentive host, seemed a little abstracted. Even Mr. Mangan, who was not an observant man, was conscious that a certain hardness, almost arrogance of speech and manner, seemed temporarily to have left his patron. “I can't tell you, Sir Everard,” he said, as he sipped his first glass of wine, “what a pleasure it is to me to see, as it were, this recrudescence of an old family. If I might be allowed to say so, there's only one thing necessary to round the whole business off, as it were.” “And that?” Dominey asked unthinkingly. “The return of Lady Dominey to health. I was one of the few, you may remember, privileged to make her acquaintance at the time of your marriage.” “I paid a visit this morning,” Dominey said, “to the doctor who has been in attendance upon her since her marriage. He agrees with me that there is no reason why Lady Dominey should not, in course of time, be restored to perfect health.” “I take the liberty of finishing my glass to that hope, Sir Everard,” the lawyer murmured. Both glasses were set down empty, only the stem of Dominey's was snapped in two. Mr. Mangan expressed his polite regrets. “This old glass,” he murmured, looking at his own admiringly, “becomes very fragile.” Dominey did not answer. His brain had served him a strange trick. In the shadows of the room he had fancied that he could see Stephanie Eiderstrom holding out her arms, calling to him to fulfill the pledges of long ago, and behind her-- “Have you ever been in love, Mangan?” Dominey asked his companion.