even hours after the words had fallen upon his ears, left him staggered and astounded.
He knew the secret of those two great and influential men. What should he do? How should he act?
Such was the cause of his marked thoughtfulness that night--an attitude which Elise had not failed to notice and which considerably puzzled her.
Mrs Shearman, a pleasant-faced, grey-haired and prosperous-looking lady, who spoke with a strong Lancashire accent, entered the room a few moments later, and the pair, springing aside at the sound of her footsteps, pretended to be otherwise occupied, much to the elder lady's amusement.
After greeting Jack the old lady sat down with him, while Elise, at her mother's request, returned to the piano and began to sing Leon Garnier's "Sublime Caresse," with that catchy refrain so popular on the boulevards of Paris and in cafes in every town in France--
Quand lachement A l'autre amant Je me livre et me donne. Qu'a lui je m'abandonne. Le coeur pame, O cher aime, C'est a toi que s'adresse Ma sublime caresse!
Elise, who spoke French excellently, was extremely fond of the French chansonette, and knew a great many. Her lover spoke French quite well also, and very frequently when they were together in the "tube" or train they conversed in that language so that the every-day person around them should not understand.
To speak a foreign language amid the open mouths of the ignorant is always secretly amusing, but not so amusing as to the one person who unfortunately sits opposite and who knows that language even more perfectly than the speaker--I was about to write "swanker."
In that drawing-room of the red-brick Hampstead residence--where the road is so steep that the vulgar London County Council Tramways have never attempted to invade it, and consequently it is a "desirable residential neighbourhood" according to the house-agents' advertisements--Jack and Elise remained after Mrs Shearman had risen and left. For another quarter of an hour they chatted and kissed wholeheartedly, for they loved each other fondly and dearly. Then, at ten o'clock, Jack rose to go. It was his hour, and he never overstepped the bounds of propriety. From the first he had felt himself a mere clerk on the forbidden ground of the successful manufacturer's home. Dan Shearman, honest, outspoken and square, had achieved Hampstead as a stepping-stone to Mayfair or Belgravia. To Jack Sainsbury--the man of the fine old yeoman stock--the refinement of the red-brick and laurels of Hampstead was synonymous with taste and breeding. To him the dull aristocracy of the London squares was unknown, and therefore unregarded.
How the people born in society laugh at Tom, Dick and Harry, with their feminine folk, who, in our world of make-believe, are struggling and fighting with one 

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