"I like him, but I haven't much time for young men, Sir Christopher. I've a husband, you may remember."
"Then turn him over where he belongs—to Bernadette."
She raised her brows a little, as she smiled at him.
"Oh, the young fellow's got to get his baptism of fire. It'll do him good."
"How easily you Judges settle other people's fortunes!"
"In the end, his not going to his cousin's house is an absurdity."
"Well, yes, so it is, in the end, of course," she agreed. "It shall be done, Sir Christopher."
While his fortunes were thus being settled for him—more or less, and as the future might reveal—Arthur was walking home, well pleased with himself. The lady's friendliness delighted him; if he did not prize the old Judge's so highly, he had the sense to perceive that it was really a more valuable testimonial and brought with it more substantial encouragement. From merely being kind to him the Norton Wards had come to like him, as it seemed, and their liking was backed by Sir Christopher's endorsement. He did not regard these things from a worldly point of view; he did not think of them as stepping-stones, or at any rate only quite indirectly. They would no doubt help him to get rid of, or at least to hold in subjection, his demon of self-distrust; but still more would they comfort him and make him happy. The pleasure he derived from Mrs. Norton Ward's liking, and the Judge's approval, was in quality akin to the gratification which Marie Sarradet's bearing had given him a few nights ago in Regent's Park; just as that had roused in him a keener sense of Marie's attractiveness, so now he glowed with a warm recognition of the merits of his new friends.
Walking home along Oxford Street, he had almost reached the corner of Tottenham Court Road when his complacent musings were interrupted by the sight of a knot of people outside the door of a public-house. It was the sort of group not unusual at half-past eleven o'clock at night—a man, a woman on his arm, a policeman, ten or a dozen interested spectators, very ready with advice as Londoners are. As he drew near, he heard what was passing, though the policeman's tall burly figure was between him and the principal actor in the scene.
"Better do as she says and go 'ome, sir," said the policeman soothingly.