We fell silent for awhile. Then said I, softly: “Duke, with such a past for background, I think I can understand how Dolly must stand out in the front of your picture.” “Yes,” he said, with a tender inflection in his voice. “But anyhow I have no quarrel with her sex. What should I have been without that other presence in the past? I have known only two women intimately. For their sake my right arm is at the service of all.” His eyes shone upon me from the sallow, strong face. He looked like a crippled knight of errantry, fearless and dangerous to tamper with where his right of affection was questioned. The week that followed was barren of active interest. It was a busy one at Great Queen street, and all personal matters must needs be relegated to the background. Occasionally I saw Dolly, but only in the course of official routine, and no opportunity occurred for us to exchange half a dozen words in private. Nevertheless, there was in the dusty atmosphere of the place a sensation of warmth and romance that is scarcely habitual to the matter-of-fact of the workshop. Compromise with my heart as I might on the subject of Zyp’s ineffaceable image, I could not but be conscious that Ripley’s at present held a very pretty and tender sentiment for me. The sense of a certain proprietorship in it was an experience of happiness that made my days run rosily, for all the perplexity in my soul. Yet love, such as I understood it in its spiritual exclusiveness, was absent; nor did I ever entertain for a moment the possibility of its awakening to existence in my breast. So the week wore on and it was Saturday again, and to-morrow, for good or evil, the question must be put. That evening, as Duke and I were sitting talking after supper, Jason’s voice came clamoring up the stairs and a moment after my brother burst into the room. He was in high spirits--flushed and boisterous as a young Antinous--and he flung himself into a chair and nodded royally to Duke. “Renny’s chum, I suppose?” said he. “And that’s a distinction to be proud of, for all it’s his brother that says so. Glad to know you, Straw.” Duke didn’t answer, but he returned the nod, striving to gloze over prejudice genially for my sake. “Renny, old chap!” cried Jason, “I sha’n’t want my friend at court yet--not yet, by a long chalk, I hope. Look here.” He seized a purse from his pocket and clapped it down on the table with a jingling thud. “There’s solid cash for you, my boy! Forty-three pounds to a penny, and a new pleasure to the pretty face of each of ’em.” “Where on earth did you get it, Jason?” “Won’t you be shocked, Barebones? Come with me some night and see for yourself.” “You’ve been gambling, I believe.” “Horrid, isn’t it?--the wailing baby and the deserted wife and the pistol in a garret--that’s what you are thinking of, eh? Oh, you dear thing! But we aren’t built alike, you and I.” “Be quiet, can’t you?” I cried, angrily.