On Sunday night, for no conceivable reason, an unwonted wakefulness came upon him. Unaccountably he realised he was a contemptible liar. All through the small hours of Monday he reviewed the tale of his falsehoods, and when he tried to turn his mind from that, the financial problem suddenly rose upon him. He heard two o’clock strike, and three. It is odd how unhappy some of us are at times, when we are at our happiest. XXXIV. “Good morning, Madam,” said Hoopdriver, as Jessie came into the breakfast room of the Golden Pheasant on Monday morning, and he smiled, bowed, rubbed his hands together, and pulled out a chair for her, and rubbed his hands again. She stopped abruptly, with a puzzled expression on her face. “Where _have_ I seen that before?” she said. “The chair?” said Hoopdriver, flushing. “No—the attitude.” She came forward and shook hands with him, looking the while curiously into his face. “And—Madam?” “It’s a habit,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, guiltily. “A bad habit. Calling ladies Madam. You must put it down to our colonial roughness. Out there up country—y’know—the ladies—so rare—we call ’em all Madam.” “You _have_ some funny habits, brother Chris,” said Jessie. “Before you sell your diamond shares and go into society, as you say, and stand for Parliament—What a fine thing it is to be a man!—you must cure yourself. That habit of bowing as you do, and rubbing your hands, and looking expectant.” “It’s a habit.” “I know. But I don’t think it a good one. You don’t mind my telling you?” “Not a bit. I’m grateful.” “I’m blessed or afflicted with a trick of observation,” said Jessie, looking at the breakfast table. Mr. Hoopdriver put his hand to his moustache and then, thinking this might be another habit, checked his arm and stuck his hand into his pocket. He felt juiced awkward, to use his private formula. Jessie’s eye wandered to the armchair, where a piece of binding was loose, and, possibly to carry out her theory of an observant disposition, she turned and asked him for a pin. Mr. Hoopdriver’s hand fluttered instinctively to his lappel, and there, planted by habit, were a couple of stray pins he had impounded. “What an odd place to put pins!” exclaimed Jessie, taking it. “It’s ’andy,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “I saw a chap in a shop do it once.” “You must have a careful disposition,” she said, over her shoulder, kneeling down to the chair. “In the centre of Africa—up country, that is—one learns to value pins,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, after a perceptible pause. “There weren’t over many pins in Africa. They don’t lie about on the ground there.” His face was now in a fine, red glow. Where would the draper break out next? He thrust his hands into his coat pockets, then took one out again, furtively removed the second pin and dropped it behind him gently. It fell with a loud ‘ping’ on the fender. Happily she made no remark, being preoccupied with the binding of the chair.