Mr. Mudge sat for a moment or two with his hands upon his knees and his eyes staring in front of him. Pamela knew his history, and esteemed his judgment. He had built up a great contracting business from the poorest beginnings, and he remained without bombast or arrogance. He was to be met nowadays in many houses, and, while he had acquired manners, he had lost nothing of his simplicity. The journey from the Seven Dials to Belgrave Square is a test of furnace heat, and John Mudge had betrayed no flaws. There was a certain forlornness, too, in his manner which appealed particularly to Pamela. She guessed that the apples, for which through a lifetime he had grasped, had crumbled into ashes between his fingers. Sympathy taught her that the man was lonely. He wandered through the world amidst a throng of acquaintances; but how many friends had he, she wondered? She did not interrupt his reflections, and he turned to her at last, with an air of decision. "I am on strange ground here," he said, "as you know. I am the outsider; and when I am on strange ground I go warily. If I am asked what I think of this man or that I make it a rule to praise." "Yes; but not to me," said Pamela, with a smile. "I want to know the truth to-night." Mudge looked at her deliberately, and no less deliberately he spoke-- "And I think you ought to know the truth to-night." Mudge, then, like the rest, knew that she was Millicent's friend. Was it for that reason that she ought to know the truth? "I know Callon a little," he went on, "but I know a good deal about him. Like most of the men who know him I dislike him heartily. Women, on the other hand, like him, Miss Mardale--like him too well. Women make extraordinary mistakes over men just as men do over women. They can be very blind--like your friend----" Mudge paused for an appreciable time. Then he went on steadily-- "Like your friend Lady Millingham, who invites him here." Pamela was grateful for the delicacy with which the warning was conveyed, but she did not misunderstand it. She had been told indirectly, but no less definitely on that account, that Millie was entangled. "Callon has good looks, of course," continued Mudge; and Pamela uttered a little exclamation of contempt. Mudge smiled, but rather sadly. "Oh, it's something. All people have not your haughty indifference to good looks. He is tall, he has a face which is a face and not a pudding. It's a good deal, Miss Mardale." Pamela looked in surprise at the stout, heavily-built bald man who spoke. That he should ever have given a thought to how he looked was a new idea to her. It struck her as pathetic. "But he is not merely good-looking. He is clever, persistent besides, and, so far as I can judge, untroubled by a single scruple in the management of his life. Altogether, Miss Mardale, a dangerous man. How does he live?" he asked suddenly.