else. He was glad St. George hadn't renounced his visit altogether--that
would have been too absurd. Yes, the world was magnanimous, and even he
himself felt so as, on looking at his watch, he noted but six o'clock, so
that he could mentally congratulate his successor on having an hour still
to sit in Miss Fancourt's drawing-room. He himself might use that hour
for another visit, but by the time he reached the Marble Arch the idea of
such a course had become incongruous to him. He passed beneath that
architectural effort and walked into the Park till he got upon the
spreading grass. Here he continued to walk; he took his way across the
elastic turf and came out by the Serpentine. He watched with a friendly
eye the diversions of the London people, he bent a glance almost
encouraging on the young ladies paddling their sweethearts about the lake
and the guardsmen tickling tenderly with their bearskins the artificial
flowers in the Sunday hats of their partners. He prolonged his
meditative walk; he went into Kensington Gardens, he sat upon the penny
chairs, he looked at the little sail-boats launched upon the round pond
and was glad he had no engagement to dine. He repaired for this purpose,
very late, to his club, where he found himself unable to order a repast
and told the waiter to bring whatever there was. He didn't even observe
what he was served with, and he spent the evening in the library of the
establishment, pretending to read an article in an American magazine. He
failed to discover what it was about; it appeared in a dim way to be
about Marian Fancourt.

Quite late in the week she wrote to him that she was not to go into the
country--it had only just been settled. Her father, she added, would
never settle anything, but put it all on her. She felt her
responsibility--she had to--and since she was forced this was the way she
had decided. She mentioned no reasons, which gave our friend all the
clearer field for bold conjecture about them. In Manchester Square on