At this moment James and his daughters were announced. Dartie, feeling badly in want of a drink, had pleaded an appointment with his dentist, and, being put down at the Marble Arch, had got into a hansom, and was already seated in the window of his club in Piccadilly.

His wife, he told his cronies, had wanted to take him to pay some calls. It was not in his line⁠—not exactly. Haw!

Hailing the waiter, he sent him out to the hall to see what had won the 4:30 race. He was dog-tired, he said, and that was a fact; had been drivin’ about with his wife to “shows” all the afternoon. Had put his foot down at last. A fellow must live his own life.

At this moment, glancing out of the bay window⁠—for he loved this seat whence he could see everybody pass⁠—his eye unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, chanced to light on the figure of Soames, who was mousing across the road from the Green Park-side, with the evident intention of coming in, for he, too, belonged to “The Iseeum.”

Dartie sprang to his feet; grasping his glass, he muttered something about “that 4:30 race,” and swiftly withdrew to the cardroom, where Soames never came. Here, in complete isolation and a dim light, he lived his own life till half past seven, by which hour he knew Soames must certainly have left the club.

It would not do, as he kept repeating to himself whenever he felt the impulse to join the gossips in the bay-window getting too strong for him⁠—it absolutely would not do, with finances as low as his, and the “old man” (James) rusty ever since that business over the oil shares, which was no fault of his, to risk a row with Winifred.

If Soames were to see him in the club it would be sure to come round to her that he wasn’t at the dentist’s at all. He never knew a family where things “came round” so. Uneasily, amongst the green baize card-tables, a frown on his olive coloured face, his check trousers crossed, and patent-leather boots shining through the gloom, he sat biting his forefinger, and wondering where the deuce he was to get the money if Erotic failed to win the Lancashire Cup.