“What do you mean?” he asked.  “There’s nothing against Miss Fisher that I know of; it’s simply that I’ve been asked to lunch with her, and as I know she’ll have a friend, I take ditto because I’d rather sit down four than three.”  Rowley hastened to disabuse any prejudice against Miss Fisher, whom he felt sure was the very soul of propriety, “Only, don’t you know, women get an idea, and though my little wife’s the best sort in the world, if she got scent that I’d been lunching with an actress instead of going straight to her, there’d be the very deuce to pay.”

“Fiddle de dee! besides, how is she to know? who’s to tell her?” and before there was time to answer, a vigorous pull was given to the bell.

“Confound this fellow; I wish I’d gone straight off to Nina.  What a fool I am!” These were the reflections of Captain Dacres as he followed his friend into the presence of Miss Fisher, who received him with easy cordiality.

“Good gracious on me!  Captain Dacres,” she said, “what a time it is since I’ve seen you, to be sure; I took it for granted you were dead.”

“Dead!” repeated Nick Walcot.  “Why he’s married; didn’t you know?”

“Oh, it’s about the same to me,” laughed the lady, and then tilting herself back in her chair so that her voice might reach the further room more easily, she called, “Doady I say, come in here—­there’s a surprise for you.”

And in answer to the summons a young lady appeared, who threw herself into a dramatic attitude exclaiming, “What!  Captain Dacres?  Well I never!  Why—­who’d a thought of seeing you?”

Certainly it was not Captain Dacres who had anticipated that pleasure, for while responding with the best grace he could command to the chaff and banter which began to be darted at him, he was consigning Miss Fisher, and more especially the effusive Doady, to every depth between this world and the one below.

The announcement of luncheon opened a more cheerful vista.  “Here I am, and I must make the best of it,” thought Rowley following, in company with Doady, Nick Walcot and Miss Fisher.  “But if ever anything of the sort happens again may I be tarred and feathered.  To think I ever thought this woman pretty, and to fancy that to this day Nina is jealous of her.”

The luncheon, commenced at an unusually late hour, took a long time getting through; the two ladies were excellent company, and notwithstanding the invectives he had indulged in, five o’clock struck very quickly.  Then it was discovered that everybody was going the same way, and it ended with two hansoms being called.  Miss Fisher and Nick Walcot got into one, Captain Rowley and Doady Donne occupied the other.

“How tiresome the sun is, let me put up your parasol?” said our friend Rowley, with evident anxiety to screen her; but Doady begged he wouldn’t trouble.

“I don’t mind the sun a bit,” she said.  “And I’m not in the least afraid of any one seeing me, since you’ve married you’ve grown so very respectable.”