Half a dozen of the passengers would spread this gossip far and wide through England.

There was that problematic Mrs.Borisoff, a frisky grass widow, who seemed to know crowds of distinguished people, and who was watching him day by day with her confounded smile! Who could say what passed between her and Irene, intimates as they had become?
Did they make fun of him?
Did they _dare_ to?
Arnold Jacks differed widely from the common type of fatuous young man.
He was himself a merciless critic of fatuity; he had a faculty of shrewd observation, plenty of caustic common sense.

Yet the position into which he had drifted threatened him with ridiculous extremes of self-consciousness.

Even in his personal carriage, he was not quite safe against ridicule; and he felt it.

This must come to an end.
He sought his moment, and found it at the hour of dusk.