"New York?" cried Wiffler and Jenkinson, in a breath.
"Ah!—that's the very place!" shrieked Gradbury. "And I'll tell you what—I've my suspicions that——"
"Your suspicions are well founded," said Jenkinson, in a hollow voice. "That was their object."
Then those three miserable men went off to the club; and the hubbub as they entered the smoke-room told them that something was amiss. Frodwell was standing on the hearthrug declaiming about the right place for a wife being by her husband's side instead of frivolling off to crack-brained colleges holding out all manner of insane and impracticable ——.
About twenty other clubbites stood round and grunted approval.
Anger and gloom were the dominant principles of that smoke-room.
"Your wife gone over? Oh, no, of course, you haven't got a wife," said Jenkinson to young Flabtree.
"No; and what's more, I'm not likely to have one now. My best girl's gone over to New York—for three years she thinks. Hanged if I know how she can be improved by that fool of a college—for that's where she's off to, you bet! Her fringe keeps frizzy in wet weather, and she has a little dimple each side of her nose; so what more can she want?"
"All my best girls have gone!" said poor young Grownder, sinking into a settee and covering his face with his hands.
