Thelma._" He shook his head with a sort of resigned cheerfulness.
"Hopelessly damned," he murmured again gently, "unless--" What alternative suggested itself to his mind was not precisely apparent, for his thoughts suddenly turned in a more frivolous direction.

Rising from the now exhausted tea-table, he drew out a small pocket-mirror and surveyed himself therein with a mild approval.

With the extreme end of his handkerchief he tenderly removed two sacrilegious crumbs that presumed to linger in the corners of his piously pursed mouth.

In the same way he detached a morsel of congealed butter that clung pertinaciously to the end of his bashfully retreating nose.

This done, he again looked at himself with increased satisfaction, and, putting by his pocket-mirror, rang the bell.