“His lordship’s music mad, ma’am,” replied Daddy, who delighted in adopting her style; “never misses a season at Bayreuth, or a _première_ of Saint-Saëns’s.” “He’s never left a card, and ’tis rude,” said Mrs. Massarene. “We know all his sisters and brothers-in-law.” “It _is_ rude, madam,” assented Daddy, “but men don’t go often where they’re liable to meet their own families.” “That’s a heathen sentiment,” said Mrs. Massarene severely. “Only human nature,” said Daddy cheerfully. “Human nature is much the same, dear lady, whether heathen, Chinee, or Christian.” “Ye don’t know much about the Chinese, sir,” said Mrs. Massarene. “They’re that wrapped up in their families that they’re always agoin’ to their graves; not like the folks here, who poke a dead person into the earth and give orders to a florist, and then thinks of ’em never no more. The Chinese pray to their dead; ’tis very touching, though it may be an offence to Deity.” “I imagine, ma’am, their sensibilities are not blunted by death-duties,” said Daddy rather crossly; he disliked being corrected, and he disliked being taken _au pied de la lettre:_ it is highly inconvenient to anyone who has the reputation of a humorist. CHAPTER XXVII. Brancepeth, like Hurstmanceaux, was sincerely unhappy through her, for a woman whom men love much, despite her faults and caprices, has an almost unlimited power of worrying and of torturing their less complex and more kindly natures. The breaking of a habit is always painful, and he had an affectionate soul. To have the door of Stanhope Street shut in his face hurt him as it hurts a kind-hearted St. Bernard dog to be shut out of an accustomed house and left to pine on the area pavement. She swept past him in her carriage with a distant bow which cut him to the quick. Pride kept him from calling at her residence, but he could not help haunting the street to see the little black forms and golden heads of the children trotting off on their noonday walk, or Jack, in solitary manhood, riding with his groom. There was no one to whom he could appeal. Her sister, Carrie Wisbeach, the only one of her family who had ever liked him, had been three months away on a yachting journey round the world; and he felt, without ever hearing it said, that her people and her set approved the conduct of the Duchess of Otterbourne in having broken with him; they approved her more than if she had married him. “Mammy’s took away my Punch, Harry--the beautiful Punch you giv’d me,” said Jack, in woebegone accents; it had been a real Punch, show box, puppets, a Toby that squeaked, and a set of pandean pipes--a delicious toy with which Jack could make believe to be “the man in the street” to his great ecstasy. “She says I’m a little beast ’cos I have everythin’. What have I got? She’s even tooked away the Punch. I haven’t got anything,” said the poor little man with tragic intensity.