He sat there alone for five minutes, with plenty to think of; above all with his sense of having suddenly been dropped by a charming woman overlaid now by other impressions and in fact quite cleared and indifferent.

He hadn't yet had so quiet a surrender; he didn't in the least care if nobody spoke to him more.

He might have been, by his attitude, in for something of a march so broad that the want of ceremony with which he had just been used could fall into its place as but a minor incident of the procession.

Besides, there would be incidents enough, as he felt when this term of contemplation was closed by the reappearance of little Bilham, who stood before him a moment with a suggestive "Well ?" in which he saw himself reflected as disorganised, as possibly floored.

He replied with a "Well!" intended to show that he wasn't floored in the least.