Not even on Mervyn himself had she been so great an influence as on Beaufort Chance, and, great as the influence was, Beaufort greatly, though not unnaturally, exaggerated it. He set down to her account all the guilt of those practices for which he had suffered and of which Fricker was in reality the chief inspirer; at any rate, if she had not counselled them, she had impelled him to them and had then turned round and refused him the reward for whose sake he had sinned. If he ranked now rather with Fricker than with Mervyn or Constantine Blair, or the men of that sort who had been his colleagues and his equals, the heaviest of the blame rested on Trix. If the meshes of the Fricker net enveloped him more closely day by day, hers was the fault. Countenanced by an element of truth, carried the whole way by resentment, by jealousy, and by the impulse to acquit himself at another's expense, he would have rejoiced to make Trix his scapegoat and to lay on her the burden of his sins. Though she could not bear his punishment, he welcomed her as his partner in misfortune. He longed to see her in her humiliation, and sought a way. When he asked himself what he meant to say to her he could not answer; his impulse was to see her in the dust. The Frickers often talked of Trix--Fricker with the quiet smile of a man who has done what he had to do and done it well; Mrs. Fricker with heavy self-complacent malevolence; Connie with a lighter yet still malicious raillery. An instinct in Chance made him take small part in these discussions and display some indifference towards them; but soon he gleaned what he wanted from them. Fricker had found out where Trix was; he had received a brief note from her, asking to be informed of the full extent of her speculative liabilities. He described with amusement the lucid explanation which he had sent. 'When she's paid that, and her other debts--which must be pretty heavy--there won't be much left, I fancy,' he reflected. 'Where is she?' asked Connie, in passing curiosity. 'I forget. Oh, here's the letter. Thirty-four Harriet Street, Covent Garden. Hardly sounds princely, does it, Connie?' They all laughed, and Beaufort Chance with them. But he hoarded up the address in his memory. The next moment, by an impulse to conceal his thoughts, he stole an affectionate glance at Connie and received her sly return of it. He knew that, whatever feeling took him to Trix Trevalla's, his visit would not win approval from Connie Fricker.