"It does not matter. Thank you. Good-morning."

"Good-morning, sir," said Bashville, respectfully, as he withdrew.
Outside the door his manner changed. He put on a pair of primrose
gloves, took up a silver-mounted walking-stick that he had left in
the corridor, and walked from Downing Street into Whitehall. A party
of visitors from the country, who were standing there examining the
buildings, guessed that he was a junior lord of the Treasury.

He waited in vain that afternoon for Lucian to appear at the house
in Regent's Park. There were no callers, and he wore away the time
by endeavoring, with the aid of a library that Miss Carew had placed
at the disposal of her domestics, to unravel the philosophy of
Spinoza. At the end of an hour, feeling satisfied that he had
mastered that author's views, he proceeded to vary the monotony of
the long summer's day by polishing Lydia's plate.

Meanwhile, Lucian was considering how he could best make Lydia not
only repudiate Cashel's acquaintance, but feel thoroughly ashamed of
herself for having encouraged him, and wholesomely mistrustful of
her own judgment for the future. His parliamentary experience had
taught him to provide himself with a few well-arranged, relevant
facts before attempting to influence the opinions of others on any
subject. He knew no more of prize-fighting than that it was a brutal
and illegal practice, akin to cock-fighting, and, like it, generally
supposed to be obsolete. Knowing how prone Lydia was to suspect any
received opinion of being a prejudice, he felt that he must inform
himself more particularly. To Lord Worthington's astonishment, he
not only asked him to dinner next evening, but listened with
interest while he descanted to his heart's content on his favorite