He walked to Richard's hotel, and up and down the street there, hoping every minute to hear his step; sometimes fancying he might have returned and gone to bed. Two o'clock struck. Ripton could not go away. He was sure he should not sleep if he did. At last the cold sent him homeward, and leaving the street, on the moonlight side of Piccadilly he met his friend patrolling with his head up and that swing of the feet proper to men who are chanting verses. "Old Rip!" cried Richard, cheerily. "What on earth are you doing here at this hour of the morning?" Ripton muttered of his pleasure at meeting him. "I wanted to shake your hand before I went home." Richard smiled on him in an amused kindly way. "That all? You may shake my hand any day, like a true man as you are, old Rip! I've been speaking about you. Do you know, that--Mrs. Mount--never saw you all the time at Richmond, or in the boat!" "Oh!" Ripton said, well assured that he was a dwarf: "you saw her safe home?" "Yes. I've been there for the last couple of hours--talking. She talks capitally: she's wonderfully clever. She's very like a man, only much nicer. I like her." "But, Richard, excuse me--I'm sure I don't mean to offend you--but now you're married ... perhaps you couldn't help seeing her home, but I think you really indeed oughtn't to have gone upstairs." Ripton delivered this opinion with a modest impressiveness. "What do you mean?" said Richard. "You don't suppose I care for any woman but my little darling down there." He laughed. "No; of course not. That's absurd. What I mean is, that people perhaps will--you know, they do--they say all manner of things, and that makes unhappiness, and ... I do wish you were going home to-morrow, Ricky. I mean, to your dear wife." Ripton blushed and looked away as he spoke. The hero gave one of his scornful glances. "So you're anxious about my reputation. I hate that way of looking on women. Because they have been once misled--look how much weaker they are!--because the world has given them an ill fame, you would treat them as contagious, and keep away from them for the sake of your character!" "It would be different with me," quoth Ripton. "How?" asked the hero. "Because I'm worse than you," was all the logical explanation Ripton was capable of. "I do hope you will go home soon," he added. "Yes," said Richard, "and I, so do I hope so. But I've work to do now. I dare not, I cannot, leave it. Lucy would be the last to ask me;--you saw her letter yesterday. Now listen to me, Rip. I want to make you be just to women." Then he read Ripton a lecture on erring women, speaking of them as if he had known them and studied them for years. Clever, beautiful, but betrayed by love, it was the first duty of all true men to cherish and redeem them. "We turn them into curses, Rip; these divine creatures." And the world suffered for it. That--that was the root of all the evil in the world!