Mr. Jobling went straight on to London, but Slyne took Sallie and Captain Dove to a quiet but expensive hotel, where they remained for a few days, which passed in a perfect whirl of novelty and excitement for her. And when they in their turn crossed the Channel, she had for baggage at least a dozen new trunks containing the choicest spoils of the Rue de la Paix. Slyne had pooh-poohed all her timid protests against his lavish expenditure on her account, and had also provided for Captain Dove and Ambrizette in their degree. He had evidently a fortune at his disposal, and was bent on showing her how generous he could be.
He was also unostentatiously displaying other good qualities which had all gone to make those days pass very pleasantly for her. She could not fail to appreciate the courtesy and consideration which he consistently showed her now. His patience with Captain Dove, a trying companion at the best of times and doubly troublesome idle, more than once made her wonder whether he could be the same Jasper Slyne she had known on the Olive Branch. Prosperity seemed to have improved him almost beyond recognition.
He had a cabin at her disposal on the Calais-Dover steamer but she stayed on deck throughout the brief passage, glad to breathe the salt sea-air again, while he entertained her with descriptions of London and she watched the twinkling lights that were guiding her home.
And then came London itself, at last, somewhat grey, and cold, and disconsolate-looking on a wet winter morning.
But after breakfast in a cosy suite at the Savoy, a blink of sunshine along the Embankment helped to better that first hasty impression. And then Slyne took Captain Dove and her in a taxicab along the thronged and bustling Strand to Mr. Jobling's office in Chancery Lane.
They got out in front of a dingy building not very far from Cursitor Street. It was raining again, and Sallie, looking up and down the narrow, turbid thoroughfare, felt glad that she did not need to live there.
Indoors, the atmosphere was scarcely less depressing. A dismal passage led toward a dark stairway, up which they had to climb flight after flight to reach at last a dusty, ill-smelling, gas-lighted room, inhabited only by a shabby, shock-headed hobbledehoy of uncertain age and unprepossessing appearance, perched on a preposterously high stool at a still higher desk, behind a cage-like partition.
"I want to see Mr. Jobling, at once," Slyne announced to him. And Mr. Jobling's "managing clerk" looked slowly round, with a snake-like and disconcerting effect due to a very long neck and a very low collar.
"Show Mr. Slyne in immediately, Mullins," ordered a pompous voice from within; and Mr. Jobling himself, a blackcoated, portly, important personage there, came bustling out from his private office to welcome his visitors.
"How d'ye do, how d'ye do, Lady Josceline!" he exclaimed, and cocked an arch eyebrow at Sallie's most becoming costume; although the effect he intended was somewhat impaired by the fact that he was still suffering from a black eye, painted over in haste—and by an incompetent artist.