Mr. Taynton read this through, and glanced round, as if to see whether the servants had left the room.  Then he sat with closed eyes for a moment, and took an envelope, and swiftly addressed it.  He smudged it, however, in blotting it, and so crumpled it up, threw it into the waste-paper basket.  He then addressed a second one, and into this he inserted his letter, and got up.

The servant was waiting in the little hall outside.

“Please give this to Mr. Mills when he arrives,” he said.  “You expected him last night, did you not?”

Mr. Taynton found on arrival at his office that, in his partner’s absence, there was a somewhat heavy day of work before him, and foresaw that he would be occupied all afternoon and indeed probably up to dinner time.  But he was able to get out for an hour at half-past twelve, at which time, if the weather was hot, he generally indulged in a swim.  But today there was a certain chill in the air after yesterday’s storm, and instead of taking his dip, he walked along the sea front toward Sussex Square.  For in his warm-hearted way, seeing that Morris was, as he had said, to tell his mother today about his happy and thoroughly suitable love affair, Mr. Taynton proposed to give a little partie carree on the earliest possible evening, at which the two young lovers, Mrs. Assheton, and himself would form the table.  He would learn from her what was the earliest night on which she and Morris were disengaged, and then write to that delightful girl whose affections dear Morris had captured.

But at the corner of the square, just as he was turning into it, there bowled swiftly out a victoria drawn by two horses; he recognised the equipage, he recognised also Mrs. Assheton who was sitting in it.  Her head, however, was turned the other way, and Mr. Taynton’s hand, already half-way up to his hat was spared the trouble of journeying farther.

But he went on to the house, since his invitation could be easily conveyed by a note which he would scribble there, and was admitted by Martin.  Mrs. Assheton, however, was out, a fact which he learned with regret, but, if he might write a note to her, his walk would not be wasted.  Accordingly he was shown up into the drawing-room, where on the writing-table was laid an open blotting-book.  Even in so small a detail as a blotting-book the careful appointment of the house was evident, for the blotting-paper was absolutely clean and white, a virgin field.

Mr. Taynton took up a quill pen, thought over for a moment the wording of his note and then wrote rapidly.  A single side of notepaper was sufficient; he blotted it on the pad, and read it through.  But something in it, it must be supposed, did not satisfy him, for he crumpled it up.  Ah, at last and for the first time there was a flaw in the appointment of the house, for there was no wastepaper basket by the table.  At any rate one must suppose that Mr. Taynton did not see it, for he put his rejected sheet into his pocket.