uneducated, besotted, half-brutalised as he was, had yet drunk from
the cup that poisons equally the basest and noblest of our kind. A
well-dressed, good-looking young man, walking on the other side of
the Square, did not fail to witness Tom Ryfe's farewell and Maud's
interview with the crossing-sweeper. He too looked strangely
disturbed, pacing up and down an adjoining street, more than once,
before he could make up his mind to ring a well-known bell. Verily
Miss Bruce seemed to be one of those ladies whose destiny it is to
puzzle, worry, and interest every man with whom they come in contact.




CHAPTER VII


DICK STANMORE


She had certainly succeeded in puzzling Dick Stanmore and already
began to interest him. The worry would surely follow in due time.
Dick was a fine subject for the scalpel--good-humoured, generous,
single-hearted, with faultless digestive powers, teeth, and colour to
correspond, a strong tendency to active exercise, and such a faculty
of enjoyment as, except in the highest order of intellects, seldom
lasts a man over thirty.

Like many of his kind, he _said_ he hated London, but lived there very
contentedly from April to July, nevertheless. He was fresh, just at
present, from a good scenting season in Leicestershire, followed by a