After luncheon
he went into the smoking-room and read through three
leading articles with an occasional inkling of their
meaning. At the end of the third he became convinced of
the absurdity of trying to fix his attention upon anything,
and smoked his next Havana with his eyes upon the toe of
his boot, in profound meditation. An observant person
might have noticed that he passed his hand once or twice
lightly, mechanically, over the top of his head; but even
an observant person would hardly have connected the action
with Mr. Cardiff's latent idea that although his hair
might be tinged in a damaging way there was still a good
deal of it. Three o'clock found him standing at the club
window with his hands in his pockets, and the firm-set
lips of a man who has made up his mind, looking unseeingly
into the street. At a quarter past he was driving to the
station in a hansom, smiling at the rosette on the horse's
head, which happened to be a white one.
"There's Cardiff," said a man who saw him taking his
ticket. "More than ever the _joli garcon!_"
An hour and a half later one of the somewhat unprepossessing
set of domestics attached to the Mansion Hotel, Cheynemouth,
undertook to deliver Mr.
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