[61]

"There's nothing remarkable about it at all," said Mr. Tant savagely. "Anyone would think that he had been exploring some wild region where the foot of man had never trod; instead of which, he's simply been living in a very thickly populated part of London, within a cab fare of his own home—and all for a whim! Besides, slumming's out of date."

"It wasn't exactly slumming—and besides, he really went to study the people—didn't you, Gilbert?" asked Enid, in her high voice. She was a tall, handsome girl, with a good carriage, and an abundance of good health and spirits; this evening she was particularly glad to see her old friend back again in his place among men.

"What I never can understand," said Mrs. Ewart-Crane, adjusting a bracelet on a very well-formed arm, "is why we need study men at all—or women, for the matter of that. I grant you that in your own sphere you are naturally interested in the people about you; but beyond that I decline to go."

"Exactly, my dear Mrs. Ewart-Crane," broke in[62] Tant. "Just what I always say: let us remember always the dividing line, and stick to it. We should get jumbled up in the most horrible way if we didn't remember the dividing line always, and above all, if we didn't remember that the people who live in the Arcadia Streets of the world are very right and proper in their own places, and very wrong and improper elsewhere. The people of position in this world are those who have come by right to the top; it's fellows like Byfield that put wrong notions into their heads, by mixing with 'em, and coming down, in a sense, to their level. I assure you that when I discovered him he was living in a perfectly shocking place."

[62]

Mrs. Ewart-Crane closed her eyes, and shivered. "Then I'm very glad to think that he's left it," she said. "For my part, I wish to hear no more about it; let us regard it as something happily done with and forgotten."

"But I want to hear about it, mamma," persisted Enid, laughing good-humouredly. "I'm quite sure there was an attraction down there—wasn't there?" She turned to Gilbert with a smile.

"Many attractions," he replied evasively. "All sorts of poor people, toiling cheerfully, and having rather a good time in their own way, in spite of poverty."

"Don't let him put you off, Miss Enid," said Tant, a little maliciously. "There was an attraction—I saw her, and 

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