“Sir Raffle Buffle has got a new pair of shoes.  I don’t know that for certain, but I guess it from the time it took him to put them on.”

“Ah! now you’re quizzing.  That’s always the way with you gentlemen when you get a little up in the world.  You don’t think women are worth talking to then, unless just for a joke or so.”

“I’d a great deal sooner talk to you, Mrs Lupex, than I would to Sir Raffle Buffle.”

“It’s all very well for you to say that.  But we women know what such compliments as those mean;—­don’t we, Miss Spruce?  A woman that’s been married five years as I have,—­or I may say six,—­doesn’t expect much attention from young men.  And though I was young when I married,—­young in years, that is,—­I’d seen too much and gone through too much to be young in heart.”  This she said almost in a whisper; but Miss Spruce heard it, and was confirmed in her belief that Burton Crescent was no longer respectable.

“I don’t know what you were then, Mrs Lupex,” said Eames; “but you’re young enough now for anything.”

“Mr Eames, I’d sell all that remains of my youth at a cheap rate,—­at a very cheap rate, if I could only be sure of—­”

“Sure of what, Mrs Lupex?”

“The undivided affection of the one person that I loved.  That is all that is necessary to a woman’s happiness.”

“And isn’t Lupex—­”

“Lupex!  But hush, never mind.  I should not have allowed myself to be betrayed into an expression of feeling.  Here’s your friend Mr Cradell.  Do you know I sometimes wonder what you find in that man to be so fond of him.”  Miss Spruce saw it all, and heard it all, and positively resolved upon moving herself to those two small rooms at Dulwich.

Hardly a word was exchanged between Amelia and Eames before dinner.  Amelia still devoted herself to Cradell, and Johnny saw that that arrow, if it should be needed, would be a strong weapon.  Mrs Roper they found seated at her place at the dining-table, and Eames could perceive the traces of her tears.  Poor woman!  Few positions in life could be harder to bear than hers!  To be ever tugging at others for money that they could not pay; to be ever tugged at for money which she could not pay; to desire respectability for its own sake, but to be driven to confess that it was a luxury beyond her means; to put up with disreputable belongings for the sake of lucre, and then not to get the lucre, but be driven to feel that she was ruined by the attempt!  How many Mrs Ropers there are who from year to year sink down and fall away, and no one knows whither they betake themselves!  One fancies that one sees them from time to time at the corners of the streets in battered bonnets and thin gowns, with the tattered remnants of old shawls upon their shoulders, still looking as though they had within them a faint remembrance of long-distant respectability.  With anxious eyes they peer about, as though searching in the streets for other lodgers.