evening under the gas-lamps! He had been very unhappy in the
afternoon, but that was all over now. Anxiety, suspicion, jealousy,
and the worst ingredient of the latter, a sense of humiliation, had
made wild work with his spirits, his temper, and indeed his appetite;
yet twenty minutes in a dusky back drawing-room, a cup of weak tea
and a slice of inferior bread-and-butter, were enough to restore
self-respect, peace of mind, and vigour of digestion. He could not
recall one word that bore an unusually favourable meaning, one look
that might not have been directed to a brother or an intimate friend,
and still he felt buoyed up with hope, restored to happiness. The
reaction had come on, and he was more in love with her than ever.




CHAPTER VIII


NINA


It might have spared Mr. Stanmore a deal of unnecessary discomfort had
the owner of those legs which he saw through the open window at Putney
thought fit to show the rest of his person to voyagers on the river.
Dick would then have recognised an old college friend, would have
landed to greet him with the old college heartiness, and in the
natural course of events would have satisfied himself that his
suspicions of Maud were unfounded and absurd.

Simon Perkins is not a romantic name, nor did the exterior of Simon