And after long musing over the details of his project, he stumbled back, through saplings, and tussocks, and broken bottles, to the fence; tore his dress-coat on a nail getting over it; and subsiding into his cab, lit a cheroot, and stared intently into vacancy all the way to his club.
When he reached this bachelor's home he did not know what to do with himself. He thought he would write to a celebrated firm of contractors to make an appointment for the morning; but it was past twelve o'clock, and the letters had been collected.
Some men called him to come and play loo, but he was not in the mood for cards. He tried billiards, and found his hand unsteady; he went into the smoking-room, but it was hot and noisy. He had always liked his club, and maintained against all comers that it was a glorious institution; but now he began to see that after all a middle-aged gentleman of ample fortune might find himself pleasanter lodgings. He went out of doors, where the air was so sweet and cool, rustling up and down an ivied wall, and over a strip of lawn that lay deep in shadow below it; and looking at the clear dark sky and the clear pale stars, he put to himself a momentous question, for which he had a half-shaped answer ready:
"Who shall I ask to be the mistress of my house?"
CHAPTER IV.
THE ANSWER.
