To his son, Mr. Lord talked only of practical things, urging sound advice, and refraining, now, from any mention of their differences.  Horace, absorbed in preoccupations, had never dreamt that this illness might prove fatal; on finding Nancy in tears, he was astonished.

‘Do you think it’s dangerous?’ he asked.

‘I’m afraid he will never get well.’

It was Sunday morning.  The young man went apart and pondered.  After the mid-day meal, having heard from Mary that his father was no worse, he left home without remark to any one, and from Camberwell Green took a cab to Trafalgar Square.  At the Hotel Metropole he inquired for Mrs. Damerel; her rooms were high up, and he ascended by the lift.  Sunk in a deep chair, her feet extended upon a hassock, Mrs. Damerel was amusing herself with a comic paper; she rose briskly, though with the effort of a person who is no longer slim.

’Here I am, you see!—­up in the clouds.  Now, did you get my letter?’

‘No letter, but a telegram.’

’There, I thought so.  Isn’t that just like me?  As soon as I had sent out the letter to post, I said to myself that I had written the wrong address.  What address it was, I couldn’t tell you, to save my life, but I shall see when it comes back from the post-office.  I rather suspect it’s gone to Gunnersbury; just then I was thinking about somebody at Gunnersbury—­or somebody at Hampstead, I can’t be sure which.  What a good thing I wired!—­Oh, now, Horace, I don’t like that, I don’t really!’

The young man looked at her in bewilderment.

‘What don’t you like?’

’Why, that tie.  It won’t do at all.  Your taste is generally very good, but that tie!  I’ll choose one for you to-morrow, and let you have it the next time you come.  Do you know, I’ve been thinking that it might be well if you parted your hair in the middle.  I don’t care for it as a rule; but in your case, with your soft, beautiful hair, I think it would look well.  Shall we try?  Wait a minute; I’ll run for a comb.’

‘But suppose some one came—­’

’Nobody will come, my dear boy.  Hardly any one knows I’m here.  I like to get away from people now and then; that’s why I’ve taken refuge in this cock-loft.’

She disappeared, and came back with a comb of tortoise-shell.

’Sit down there.  Oh, what hair it is, to be sure!  Almost as fine as my own.  I think you’ll have a delicious moustache.’

Her personal appearance was quite in keeping with this vivacity.  Rather short, and inclining—­but as yet only inclining—­to rotundity of figure, with a peculiarly soft and clear complexion, Mrs. Damerel made a gallant battle against the hostile years.  Her bright eye, her moist lips, the admirable smoothness of brow and cheek and throat, bore witness to sound health; as did the rows of teeth, incontestably her own, which she exhibited in her frequent mirth.