He himself had guessed how things stood between the two before Morris had
confided in him, and it pleased him that his intuition was confirmed.
What a pity, however, that the two were not going to meet next day, that
she was out with her mother and would not get back till late. It would
have been a cooling thought in the hot office hours of to-morrow to
picture them sitting together in the garden at Falmer, or under one of
the cool deep-foliaged oaks in the park.

Then suddenly his face changed, the smile faded, but came back next
instant and broadened with a laugh. And the man who laughs when he is by
himself may certainly be supposed to have strong cause for amusement.

Mr. Taynton had come by this time to the West Pier, and a hundred yards
farther would bring him to Montpellier Road. But it was yet early, as he
saw (so bright was the moonlight) when he consulted his watch, and he
retraced his steps some fifty yards, and eventually rang at the door of a
big house of flats facing the sea, where his partner, who for the most
part, looked after the London branch of their business, had his
_pied-à-terre_. For the firm of Taynton and Mills was one of those
respectable and solid businesses that, beginning in the country, had
eventually been extended to town, and so far from its having its
headquarters in town and its branch in Brighton, had its headquarters
here and its branch in the metropolis. Mr. Godfrey Mills, so he learned
at the door had dined alone, and was in, and without further delay Mr.
Taynton was carried aloft in the gaudy bird-cage of the lift, feeling
sure that his partner would see him.

The flat into which he was ushered with a smile of welcome from the man
who opened the door was furnished with a sort of gross opulence that
never failed to jar on Mr. Taynton's exquisite taste and cultivated mind.