Among the exciting mail which Marrier had collected for him from the Grand Babylon and elsewhere, was the following letter: 

“BUCKINGHAM PALACE HOTEL.

“DEAR FRIEND,—­We are all so proud of you.  I should like some time to finish our interrupted conversation.  Will you come and have lunch with me one day here at 1.30?  You needn’t write.  I know how busy you are.  Just telephone you are coming.  But don’t telephone between 12 and 1, because at that time I always take my constitutional in St. James’s Park.—­Yours sincerely, E.A.”

“Well,” he thought, “that’s a bit thick, that is!  She’s stuck me up with a dramatist I don’t believe in, and a play I don’t believe in, and an actress I don’t believe in—­and now she—­”

Nevertheless, to a certain extent he was bluffing himself.  For, as he pretended to put Elsie April back into her place, he had disturbing and delightful visions of her.  A clever creature!  Uncannily clever!  Wealthy!  Under thirty!  Broad-minded!  No provincial prejudices!...  Her voice, that always affected his spine!  Her delicious flattery!...  She was no mean actress either!  And the multifariousness of her seductive charm!  In fact, she was a regular woman of the world, such as you would read about—­if you did read!...  He was sitting with her again in the obscurity of the discussion-room at the Azure Society’s establishment.  His heart was beating again.

Pooh!...

A single wrench and he ripped up the letter, and cast it into one of the red-lined waste-paper baskets with which the immense and rather shabby writing-room of the Majestic was dotted.

Before he had finished dealing with Mr. Marrier’s queries and suggestions—­some ten thousand in all—­the clock struck, and Nellie tripped into the room.  She was in black silk, with hints here and there of gold chains.  As she had explained, she had nothing to wear, and was therefore obliged to fall back on the final resource of every woman in her state.  For in this connection “nothing to wear” signified “nothing except my black silk”—­at any rate in the Five Towns.

“Mr. Marrier—­my wife.  Nellie, this is Mr. Marrier.”

Mr. Marrier was profuse:  no other word would describe his demeanour.  Nellie had the timidity of a young girl.  Indeed she looked quite youthful, despite the ageing influences of black silk.

“So that’s your Mr. Marrier!  I understood from you he was a clerk!” said Nellie, tartly, suddenly retransformed into the shrewd matron, as soon as Mr. Marrier had profusely gone.  She had conceived Marrier as a sort of Penkethman!  Edward Henry had hoped to avoid this interview.

He shrugged his shoulders in answer to his wife’s remark.

“Well,” he said, “where are the kids?”

“Waiting in the lounge with nurse, as you said to be.”  Her mien delicately informed him that while in London his caprices would be her law, which she would obey without seeking to comprehend.