I shall while I live regard the highest type of brain as incomplete without a paramount ideal of morality. And the best thing about Weldon was that he was utterly unconscious of his goodness. He was perfectly incapable of posing, but he had a fine, robust vanity of sorts, and he liked to regard himself as a bit of a "sad dog!" Romance was at the bottom of this. He envied the more than questionable experience of some of his acquaintances. It was because of the glamour of their perfumed wickedness. But their callous self-extrication from entanglements after growing weary of their chains made him long to wring their necks. For his own part, a certain shop girl had once fallen in love with him. He twirled his moustache and cast furtive glances at the mirror near him. It appears he had dallied with the temptation for a while--the "sad dog"--but Miss Ottley's portrait had saved him. He had kissed the shop girl once--horror of horrors!--in the Park after dark. He apologised to her father with a thousand pounds and fled to South America. When he came back she was married. He had confessed the whole of his truly dreadful criminality to Miss Ottley in a letter--and she had kept him waiting three miserable days for a reply. He believed he would have gone to the dogs headlong if she had refused to pardon him. But she did not. Vanity told him the reason. But it was beautiful to see the colour flush his cheeks and his eyes sparkle as he protested that he couldn't understand why she ever brought herself to speak to him again. I believe that was as far as Weldon ever got to telling a downright falsehood; the dear, great gander. On the third afternoon of my stay at Jermyn Street I was busily at work writing, when a knock sounded. Weldon was out; he had gone to take Miss Ottley for a drive in his newest dogcart. His man, too, had a day off, so I was quite alone. I said "Come in," and there entered Lady Helen--Hubbard's wife. She was a vision of lace fripperies and arch, mincing daintiness. "So! run to earth!" she cried. I sprang up and offered her a chair. She settled into it with a swish and a sigh. "Been searching for you everywhere! I had thought of applying to the police." I suppose I looked astonished, for she laughed. I stammered, "Why have you been searching for me?" She gave me a glance of scorn. "Should a dutiful wife regard with indifference the sudden desertion of her husband by the only friend he possesses? Just tell me that." "You take my breath away." "No," she flashed, "the 'dutiful wife' did that. Confess!" "Well, since you insist--I admit that Helen becomes you better than Joan," I said audaciously. Her eyes glittered. "May be, my fine gentleman--but would you say 'Dixon' was synonymous with 'Darby'?" "Not quite. Still, they both commence with a 'D.' That is something, eh?" "So does another word which rhymes with lamb," she retorted cuttingly. "Oh! I might have known that you would take his part. You men always stick together."