Justine, who was really Jane Clark, but who had adopted her present appellation from the name of a soubrette in a melodrama, replied in the affirmative, and Miss Montressor having taken her place by Bryan's side, they drove away. The wind was cool, but there was a bright sun, and the road was enlivened with crowds of people making the most of this, the first day of anything like fine weather, to escape from the dark streets to which they had been so long confined. They were off to the river-side public-houses of Putney and Mortlake, where they would talk over the details of the race between Oxford and Cambridge, which had recently been decided, or to the gardens of Kew, where they would pant in the tropical houses, and examine with intense interest the prospects of the budding trees and shrubs. They were pleasure-going people for the most part, who were accustomed to rank the theatre as one of their chief amusements, and who, from their hard benches in the pit, made a point of seeing any play which had a successful run at least once. So that Bryan Duval was well known by sight to most of them, as well as to the omnibus drivers, who would lean back, and roar in a hoarse voice behind their wash-leather gloves to the conductor: 'Know him? Dooval, the hactor!' It is not to be supposed that Mr. Duval was unmindful of the sensation he caused. When the omnibus men touched their hats to him, he raised his own with a grave graceful bow; but even when he spoke to his companion he still preserved the same impressive look upon his face. 'You see, Clara, my dear,' he said, with easy familiarity, though his lips never relaxed one whit, 'you see how very effective this is. People often ask me why I keep a mail-phaeton, and a brougham, and these chestnuts, and all the rest of it; they wonder I don't go about in a hansom cab; they say I should be much more independent, and it would be so much cheaper; but independently of the fact that I prefer my own handsome phaeton and comfortable brougham to any hansom cab, I find that the expense of them is almost met by the purposes they serve as an advertisement. Now this drive to-day is worth to me considerably more than a half column over the clock in the _Times_. These people would glance at that--they wouldn't read it; they never do read long advertisements--and forget all about it the next minute; but when they go home to-night, they will say to the children who are sitting up for them, or to the old man for whom it was too long a walk, "Who do you think we saw to-day? Why, Dooval, the performer--him that makes love so well--and driving such a swell trap!" and then one or the other of them will say they haven't seen me on the stage for some time, and wonder what I am doing, or what new piece I have written; and then they will look out the advertisement in the weekly paper, and you may take your oath that the money for a couple of hundred pit seats is as good as in my pocket at present.'