'Was there ever such a beaten hound?' said Uffington, after his companion had left him. 'There is no doubt about his accepting my terms. The thought of a future without money to spend in drink and gambling was too dreadful for him to contemplate.' CHAPTER XV. FIVE-O'CLOCK TEA. The pleasant intercourse which had sprung up between Mrs. Hamblin and Mrs. Chadwick lasted throughout the whole of the dead season. For her own purposes Mrs. Hamblin had affected a great interest in all that concerned, not merely the mistress of the house in Fairfax-gardens, but all her family, and Mrs. Chadwick was only too delighted to revel in the friendship thus offered to her. For she was quick-witted enough and sufficiently a woman of the world to see plainly that, although she had secured the attendance of the best people in London at her parties, and in return was regularly invited to their set and formal entertainments, she had as yet no intimacy with any members of that world in which alone she cared to live. Men dropped in to dinner now and then certainly--there were always plenty to whom the boiler-maker's capital cuisine and exquisite wine were sufficient attraction--but there had hitherto been none but the most ceremonious visiting on the part of the ladies, and none of those pleasant gatherings _en petit comité_ at which Mrs. Chadwick longed so much to assist, and from which she bitterly felt her exclusion. Mrs. Hamblin's house was one at which, as Mrs. Chadwick knew, there was a constant influx of visitors, and where the coziest little impromptu luncheons, tea-parties, and suppers were frequently taking place, all the guests being people of position in society. Mrs. Hamblin herself looking upon flirtation with a lenient eye, was scarcely likely to disapprove of in others; and the consequence was that many very pleasant meetings took place, apparently quite unexpectedly, in the handsome drawing-rooms of her house in Cumberland-place, or better still in the pretty little boudoir, all green-silk hangings and Dresden china, which was approached by double doors on the first landing, and was only accessible to the initiated. When, therefore, Mrs.. Hamblin was not merely constantly in Fairfax-gardens, but had received Mrs. Chadwick in the most friendly manner at Cumberland-place and made her free, as it were, of the boudoir, the latter lady was surely justified in thinking that when the season arrived she would be permitted to associate on a footing of intimacy with Mrs. Hamblin's friends, who, in their turn, would become intimate friends of her own, and that after this fashion her highest hopes would be realised.