There was something in his face, taken in connexion with the idea that he was concerned in the taking of a stand—it offered our quick youth the image of a rank of bristling bayonets—which made Hyacinth feel the desire to go with him till he dropped; and in a moment they started away together and took the direction Muniment had mentioned. They discoursed as they went, exchanging a great many opinions and anecdotes; but they reached the south-westerly court in which the young chemist lived with his infirm sister before he had told Hyacinth anything definite about the “points” of his reference or Hyacinth, on his side, had detailed the circumstances involved in his being, according to M. Poupin, one of the disinherited. Hyacinth didn’t wish to press, wouldn’t for the world have appeared indiscreet, and moreover, though he had taken so great a fancy to Muniment, was not quite prepared as yet to be pressed himself. Therefore it failed to become very clear how his companion had made Poupin’s acquaintance and how long he had enjoyed it. Paul Muniment nevertheless was to a certain extent communicative, especially on the question of his living in a very poor little corner. He had his sister to keep—she could do nothing for herself; and he paid a low rent because she had to have doctors and doses and all sorts of little comforts. He spent a bob a week for her on flowers. It was better too when you got upstairs, and from the back windows you could see the dome of Saint Paul’s. Audley Court, with its pretty name, which reminded Hyacinth of Tennyson, proved to be a still dingier nook than Lomax Place; and it had the further drawback that you had to penetrate a narrow alley, a passage between high black walls, to enter it. At the door of one of the houses the young men paused, lingering a little, and then Muniment said: “I say, why shouldn’t you come up? I like you well enough for that, and you can see my sister; her name’s Rosy.” He spoke as if this would be a great privilege and added, for the joke, that Rosy enjoyed a call from a gentleman of all things. Hyacinth needed no urging, and he groped his way at his companion’s heels up a dark staircase which appeared to him—for they stopped only when they could go no further—the longest and steepest he had ever ascended. At the top Paul Muniment pushed open a door, but exclaimed “Hullo, have you gone to roost?” on perceiving the room on the threshold of which they stood to be unlighted. “Oh dear, no; we’re sitting in the dark,” a small bright voice instantly replied. “Lady Aurora’s so kind; she’s here still.” The voice came out of a corner so pervaded by gloom that the speaker was indistinguishable. “Well now, that’s beautiful!” Paul Muniment rejoined. “You’ll have a party then, for I’ve brought some one else. We’re poor, you know, but honest, and not afraid of showing up, and I daresay we can manage a candle.”