They parted, and Harvey walked westward.  He had no reason for hurry; as usual, the tumult of the world’s business passed him by; he was merely a looker-on.  It occurred to him that it might be a refreshing and a salutary change if for once he found himself involved in the anxieties to which other men were subject; this long exemption and security fostered a too exclusive regard of self, an inaptitude for sympathetic emotion, which he recognised as the defect of his character.  This morning’s events had startled him, and given a shock to his imagination; but already he viewed them and their consequences with a self-possession which differed little from unconcern.  Bennet Frothingham, no doubt, had played a rascally game, foreseeing all along the issues of defeat.  As to his wife and daughter, it would be strange if they were not provided for; suffer who might, they would probably live on in material comfort, and nowadays that was the first consideration.  He was surprised that their calamity left him so unmoved; it showed conclusively how artificial were his relations with these persons; in no sense did he belong to their world; for all his foolish flutterings, Alma Frothingham remained a stranger to him, alien from every point of view, personal, intellectual, social.  And how many of the people who crowded to her concert last night would hear the news this morning with genuine distress on her account?  Gratified envy would be the prevailing mood, with rancorous hostility in the minds of those who were losers by Bennet Frothingham’s knavery or ill-fortune.  Hugh Carnaby’s position called for no lament; he had a sufficient income of his own, and would now easily overcome his wife’s pernicious influence; with or without her, he would break away from a life of corrupting indolence, and somewhere beyond seas ‘beat the British drum’ —­ use his superabundant vitality as nature prompted.

After all, it promised to clear the air.  These explosions were periodic, inevitable, wholesome.  The Britannia Loan, &c, &c, &c, had run its pestilent course; exciting avarice, perturbing quiet industry with the passion of the gamester, inflating vulgar ambition, now at length scattering wreck and ruin.  This is how mankind progresses.  Harvey Rolfe felt glad that no theological or scientific dogma constrained him to a justification of the laws of life.

At lunchtime, newspaper boys began to yell.  The earliest placards roared in immense typography.  In the Metropolitan Club, sheets moist from the press suddenly descended like a fall of snow.  Rolfe stood by a window and read quietly.  This first report told him little that he had not already learnt, but there were a few details of the suicide.  Frothingham, it appeared, always visited the office of Stock and Share on the day before publication.  Yesterday, as usual, he had looked in for half an hour at three o’clock; but unexpectedly he came again at seven in the evening, and for a third time