He stood stupified listening to the alternation of the voices, both so soft in their different tones, both--in view of him, and in the ease and everyday circumstances of his lodging, and his appearance, which was little changed--beginning to feel at their ease too, and as if nothing could be so terrible as they had supposed. It relieved their minds beyond description to see everything in the usual order of a place in which people were living. No man could be in the depths of a catastrophe who had his breakfast-table neatly set out and the _Standard_ folded by his plate. ‘He has given us a fright for nothing,’ Elly had said. The appearance of John indeed gave them a moment’s pause, for he was very pale, and his eyes had a worn and troubled look which it was impossible not to remark. But two days’ illness, or the failure of his scheme, or any other trifling (as these ladies thought) matter, would have sufficed to do that. As he did not say anything, being too much confused and disturbed and miserable and (almost) happy, to do so, Mrs. Egerton went on, in her calm voice, the voice of one who was accustomed to no infringements of the happy ordinary course of life, ‘Now that we are here, don’t you think you might give us some breakfast, Jack? We have travelled most part of the night.’ He went and gave the necessary orders without a word--which, however, was not necessary, for Mrs. Short herself met him in the passage, bringing up the ‘things.’ The sight of these visitors had at once set John right in his land-lady’s mind. Mrs. Sandford, who was his ma, was a dignified functionary, and worthy of every respect, but she was still only Mrs. Sandford of the hospital: whereas the ladies who thus arrived with their travelling-bags in the early morning were ladies to their finger-tips, and had every sign of belonging to that class of the community, more respected than any other by the masses, which has nothing to do. And before he could remark upon the extraordinary position, the horror and the ridicule of it, John found himself sitting down to table with his cheerful guests, who were delighted to see that there was really nothing much to make any fuss about, and put off the explanation till after breakfast with the greatest composure, making themselves in the meantime very much at home. Elly pried about at all his treasures, found out her own photograph in the place from which he had not removed it, shut up in a little velvet shrine--and opened his books, and took out a rose-bud from among the little knot of flowers which one of John’s pensioners brought him regularly. She gave him a bright glance of love and sauciness, and put the rose into her bodice. Poor John! How happy it would have made him a week ago: what an aggravation of misery it was now: an anguish made more poignant by this mingled sweetness, which broke the poor fellow’s heart.