It can't make much difference, and the sooner I get away the better.' And so it was settled.

Norman left town the same afternoon, and Alaric, with his blushing honours thick upon him, was left alone.
London was now very empty, and he was constrained to enjoy his glory very much by himself.

He had never associated much with the Minusexes and Uppinalls, nor yet with the Joneses and Robinsons of his own office, and it could not be expected that there should be any specially confidential intercourse between them just at the present moment.

Undy was of course out of town with the rest of the fashionable world, and Alaric, during the next week, was left very much on his own hands.
'And so,' said he to himself, as he walked solitary along the lone paths of Rotten Row, and across the huge desert to the Marble Arch, 'and so poor Harry's hopes have been all in vain; he has lost his promotion, and now he has lost his bride--poor Harry!'-- and then it occurred to him that as he had acquired the promotion it might be his destiny to win the bride also.

He had never told himself that he loved Gertrude; he had looked on her as Norman's own, and he, at any rate, was not the man to sigh in despair after anything that was out of his reach.