This was by no means the last occasion upon which Mrs. Willoughby thought it prudent to take counsel with Fielding concerning the affairs of her friend. Nor was Fielding in any degree backward to respond with his advice. He developed, in fact, an interest in their progress quite disproportionate to his professed attitude of the spectator in the stalls. Mrs. Willoughby lived at Knightsbridge, in a little house, of which the drawing-room overlooked the Park close to the barracks, and he found it very pleasant to sit there of an afternoon and discuss in a cosy duet the future of Clarice. The subject, besides, had the advantage of inexhaustibility. On the one side Fielding ranged the suitors, or those whom he considered such; on the other the vagaries of the girl. Playing these forces off not merely against each other, but against themselves as well--for, as he pointed out, there was no harmony in the separate camps--he evolved an infinite number of endless complications. There was consequently no end to the discussion, not even when Clarice was argued through the marriage ceremony. For that point Fielding took to represent the one o'clock in the morning of a carnival ball; then the fun really begins, though decent people have to go away. Mrs. Willoughby was, as ever, staunch in her defence, though a recollection of Clarice's tearful visit with Conway's arrival for a climax prompted her now and again to laugh in the midst of it. 'You mistake thoughtlessness for tricks,' she said. 'Clarice is only a child as yet.' 'She has a child's capacity for emotion, I admit,' corrected Fielding, 'but a woman's knowledge of its use. The combination is deplorable.' Fielding inquired about Drake, and was told that he had not been seen lately. 'It looks as if he was declining in favour,' Mrs. Willoughby added. 'Not necessarily. The man's busy--there's a company coming out.' 'A solid one?' 'Likely to be, since Drake handles it. I am thinking of taking shares.' Mrs. Willoughby was surprised. Fielding seemed to her the last man calculated by nature for dabbling in stocks. 'You!' she exclaimed. Fielding nodded assent. 'Then don't do it,' Mrs. Willoughby flashed out vigorously. 'Don't think of it. Oh, I know those men in the City! Their friends get ruined, and they--well, I mustn't say anything against them, because my husband was one of them, poor dear,--but they move into larger offices. Mr. Drake has been asking you to join him?' 'He hasn't done anything of the sort. I heard of the matter through quite an independent channel. However, I am not ruined yet, and the company won't be floated for another four months. And, after all, it's my money.' Mrs. Willoughby became quiet. 'Well,' she said, and she derived some satisfaction from the thought, 'at all events Clarice has dropped talking about him.' Fielding laughed. 'That means that it's Mallinson's turn on the roundabout and nothing more.' 'Sidney Mallinson has been refused.' 'Refused! When?'