"Quite so," said Lord Alcester, as he struggled back into his coat again. "They'll give you a pound a week as long as you live. Call for it on Saturday mornings. I could also give you plenty of good advice, but I won't. Are you coming?"
She glanced at the decanter by her side. "Not quite yet," she said. "I think I'll just—"
"Oh! I see," said Lord Alcester, contemptuously. "Good-night, then."
Out in the street he stopped the first hansom that he saw. The man had often driven him before.
"What will you take," he said to the man, "to drive this cab to eternal smash? Drive it, for instance, down the Duke of York's steps?"
The cabman smiled patiently. "Which club did you say, my lord?" Lord Alcester gave the address of his club and got into the cab.
AN IDYLL OF THE SEA
The repellent mid-day meal grew to its untidy close in a frowsy boarding-house in one of the less-pleasing back streets of Sefton-on-Sea. Mr Sigismund Porter had eaten so remarkably little that he might almost have won an approving smile from the hawk-eyed proprietress. As a rule, Mr Porter was a young man who liked value for his money, but to-day there was something on his mind, a gloomy resolution which destroyed his appetite.