At the end of the third he became convinced of the absurdity of trying to fix his attention upon anything, and smoked his next Havana with his eyes upon the toe of his boot, in profound meditation.

An observant person might have noticed that he passed his hand once or twice lightly, mechanically, over the top of his head; but even an observant person would hardly have connected the action with Mr.Cardiff's latent idea that although his hair might be tinged in a damaging way there was still a good deal of it.

Three o'clock found him standing at the club window with his hands in his pockets, and the firm-set lips of a man who has made up his mind, looking unseeingly into the street.

At a quarter past he was driving to the station in a hansom, smiling at the rosette on the horse's head, which happened to be a white one.
"There's Cardiff," said a man who saw him taking his ticket.

"More than ever the _joli garcon!_" An hour and a half later one of the somewhat unprepossessing set of domestics attached to the Mansion Hotel, Cheynemouth, undertook to deliver Mr.Lawrence Cardiff's card to Miss Bell.