'By the way, Jenkins, could not Mrs Howel Jenkins get Dancy to give in about that money? She is a prime favourite.'
'Mrs Jenkins knows nothing of my money transactions, and certainly would be the last person I should wish to interfere in such a matter. Let us go and post this letter, and then I want to go to Tattersalls. Will you dine with me at the club at six? and afterwards we will keep our appointment with Dancy and Lord Dupe; we may make something of the latter, if we can't of the former.'
It was nearly two o'clock in the morning when Howel reached his home. His little girl was ill in the measles, and Netta, feeling anxious about her, had been sitting up with her. When Howel entered the bedroom in which the mother and child were, he began to talk in a loud voice.
'Why on earth don't you go to bed, Netta?'
Netta put her finger on her lips, and pointed to the little bed in which her child was sleeping, then hurried into the next room, a kind of nursery and play-room, and sent the maid, who was sitting there, into the bedroom. Howel followed her; Netta saw that he had been drinking, and was greatly excited; he never was absolutely intoxicated, but he constantly drank too much.
'Why do you sit up I say, Netta?'
'Because Minette is so feverish; I did not like to leave her.'
The child had been called Minette by a French bonne, and they had all somehow adopted it as a name; her real name was Victoria.
'You didn't sit up for me, of course?'
'Certainly not; you are not so very agreeable when you come home, as to make me sit up for you.'