’Leave it to me for a day.  Let me have your word that you won’t take a step:  positively—­neither you nor Colonel Hartswood.  I’ll see you by appointment at your Club.’  Redworth looked up over the chimneys.  ’We ’re going to have a storm and a gale, I can tell you.’

‘Gale and storm!’ cried Sir Lukin; ‘what has that got to do with it?’

‘Think of something else for, a time.’

’And that brute of a woman—­deuced handsome she is!—­if you care for fair women, Redworth:—­she’s a Venus, jumped slap out of the waves, and the Devil for sire—­that you learn:  running about, sowing her lies.  She’s a yellow witch.  Oh! but she’s a shameless minx.  And a black-leg cur like Wroxeter!  Any woman intimate with a fellow like that, stamps herself.  I loathe her.  Sort of woman who swears in the morning you’re the only man on earth; and next day—­that evening-engaged!—­fee to Polly Hopkins—­and it’s a gentleman, a nobleman, my lord!—­been going on behind your back half the season!—­and she isn’t hissed when she abuses a lady, a saint in comparison!  You know the world, old fellow:—­Brighton, Richmond, visits to a friend as deep in the bog.  How Fryar-Gunnett—­a man, after all—­can stand it!  And drives of an afternoon for an airing-by heaven!  You’re out of that mess, Redworth:  not much taste for the sex; and you’re right, you’re lucky.  Upon my word, the corruption of society in the present day is awful; it’s appalling.—­I rattled at her:  and oh! dear me, perks on her hind heels and defies me to prove:  and she’s no pretender, but hopes she’s as good as any of my “chaste Dianas.”  My dear old friend, it’s when you come upon women of that kind you have a sickener.  And I’m bound by the best there is in a man-honour, gratitude, all the’ list—­to defend Diana Warwick.’

’So, you see, for your wife’s sake, your name can’t be hung on a woman of that kind,’ said Redworth.  ’I’ll call here the day after to-morrow at three P.M.’

Sir Lukin descended and vainly pressed Redworth to run up into his Club for refreshment.  Said he roguishly: 

’Who ‘s the lady?’

The tone threw Redworth on his frankness.

’The lady I ‘ve been doing business for in the City, is Miss Paynham.’

‘I saw her once at Copsley; good-looking.  Cleverish?’

‘She has ability.’

Entering his Club, Sir Lukin was accosted in the reading-room by a cavalry officer, a Colonel Launay, an old Harrovian, who stood at the window and asked him whether it was not Tom Redworth in the cab.  Another, of the same School, standing squared before a sheet of one of the evening newspapers, heard the name and joined them, saying:  ’Tom Redworth is going to be married, some fellow told me.’

‘He’ll make a deuced good husband to any woman—­if it’s true,’ said Sir Lukin, with Miss Paynham ringing in his head.  ’He’s a cold-blooded old boy, and likes women for their intellects.’

Colonel Launay hummed in meditative emphasis.  He stared at vacancy with a tranced eye, and turning a similar gaze on Sir Lukin, as if through him, burst out:  ’Oh, by George, I say, what a hugging that woman ‘ll get!’