|ANNE called at Madge’s on her way home. Madge’s, in spite of George’s progress, was still the house which had been the premises of the Hell-fire Club. Anne did not often go there and never without reason, but Madge was at a loss to know the reason of this visit, nor did she guess it when Anne unobtrusively dovetailed into The conversation about young Sam Chappie a question which might have seemed irrelevant. “Have you done anything yet with that spare room of yours upstairs?” she asked. “No,” said Madge. “Nor likely to, I fancy.” That was the reason of the visit. Anne was safeguarding her retreat, though she by no means admitted that it would come to a retreat. Engagements do not invariably lead to marriage. Meantime, hers was the waiting game and a rupture with Sam at this stage was to be avoided. When he asked her, not too confidently, if she did not agree with him about the wonder of Ada, she exercised a noble self-restraint, and all she said was: “She’s not the wife for a poor man, Sam.” “No,” said Sam thoughtfully. “I’d tumbled to that. And I don’t mean to be poor either,” and so went out to open the dark chapter of his bright success. He went to the Concentrics, not knowing that he was going to his fate. He went because it was the night of their weekly meeting and he had to go somewhere to avoid Anne’s eye, but his mood was not concentric. “I must get rich for Ada, rich for Ada,” was the burden of his thought--so early did he justify Ada’s words to Anne--and it was not a timely thought for a Concentrics evening. He had even forgotten that he had a special interest in this meeting, where the lecturer was to be Adams, once Sam’s pet aversion and unbeatable rival at the Grammar School. He was reminded of it when he found himself accosted by a young man whom he could not at first identify. “Jove! If it isn’t Sammy Branstone! Are you a member of these fossils?” “Dubby Stewart!” said Sam, as recognition dawned on him. “Reed’s here as well, somewhere,” said Stewart. “It’s a gathering of the clan.” Reed and Stewart, it seemed, were both members, which is to say that they had come once or twice some time ago and continued to keep up the small subscription from force of habit or through sheer weakness to stop paying it. Few societies indeed could exist were it not for the enthusiasm of the attending nucleus and the subscriptions of the nonattending mass. “We came to hear Gerald Adams make an ass of himself,” Stewart explained. “What a subject!” Sam had even forgotten what the subject was. “Rich for Ada, rich for Ada,” was still ringing in his ears. The subject was “Social Purity.” “Which accounts,” said Stewart, “for the size of the audience. They’ve all come hoping for the worst. I know I have.” The worst did not happen, or, rather, if it did, it was so skilfully disguised that nobody recognized it as the worst. It was easy to mistake it for the best.