It justified her in buying a copy of _Frou-Frou_, which lay upon the bookstall at Bentbridge railway station, and in studying it continuously all the way from Bentbridge to London.

She was impelled to purchase it by a recollection that Drake had first been introduced to her at a performance of that play, and his criticisms returned to her thoughts as she read the dialogue.

The play had seemed true to him, the disaster inevitable--given the particular characters, and she bore the qualification particularly in mind.

There was a difference between _Frou-Frou_ and a woman animated by a sense of duty; a difference of kind, rather than of degree.

Sidney Mallinson remarked the book which she was reading, but he made no comment whatsoever.
The next morning he paid a long call upon the editor of the _Meteor_.
Meanwhile, Drake was devoting himself to the business of the Matanga Company, with an assiduity unusual even for him.