"The paper lies, as papers always do. I didn't touch him at all."

"Didn't you, though? I should like to have had a poke at him after getting such a tap in the face as that."

"The policemen came, and all that sort of thing. One isn't allowed to fight it out in a row of that kind as one would have to do on Salisbury heath. Not that I mean to say that I could lick the fellow.

How's a man to know whether he can or not?"

"How, indeed, unless he gets a licking,--or gives it? But who was he, and what's this about his having been scorned by the noble family?"

"Trash and lies, of course. He had never seen any of the De Courcy people."

"I suppose the truth is, it was about that other--eh, Crosbie? I knew you'd find yourself in some trouble before you'd done."

"I don't know what it was about, or why he should have made such a brute of himself. You have heard about those people at Allington?"

"Oh, yes; I have heard about them."

"God knows, I didn't mean to say anything against them. They knew nothing about it."

"But the young fellow knew them? Ah, yes, I see all about it. He wants to step into your shoes. I can't say that he sets about it in a bad way. But what do you mean to do?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing! Won't that look queer? I think I should have him before the magistrates."

"You see, Butterwell, I am bound to spare that girl's name. I know I have behaved badly."

"Well, yes; I fear you have."

Mr. Butterwell said this with some considerable amount of decision in his voice, as though he did not intend to mince matters, or in any way to hide his opinion. Crosbie had got into a way of condemning himself in this matter of his marriage, but was very anxious that others, on hearing such condemnation from him, should say something in the way of palliating his fault. It would be so easy for a friend to remark that such little peccadilloes were not altogether uncommon, and that it would sometimes happen in life that people did not know their own minds. He had hoped for some such benevolence from Fowler Pratt, but had hoped in vain. Butterwell was a good-natured, easy man, anxious to stand well with all about him, never pretending to any very high tone of feeling or of morals; and yet Butterwell would say no word of comfort to him. He could get no one to slur over his sin for him, as though it were no sin,--only an unfortunate mistake; no one but the De Courcys, who had, as it were, taken possession of him and swallowed him alive.

"It can't be helped now," said Crosbie. "But as for that fellow who made such a brutal attack on me the other morning, he knows that he is safe behind her petticoats. I can do nothing which would not make some mention of her name necessary."

"Ah, yes; I see," said Butterwell. "It's very unfortunate; very. I don't know that I can do anything for you. Will you come before the Board to-day?"

"Yes; of course I shall," said Crosbie, who was becoming very sore.

His sharp ear had told him that all Butterwell's respect and cordiality were gone,--at any rate for the time. Butterwell, though holding the higher official rank, had always been accustomed to treat him as though he, the inferior, were to be courted. He had possessed, and had known himself to possess, in his office as well as in the outside world, a sort of rank much higher than that which from his position he could claim legitimately. Now he was being deposed. There could be no better touchstone in such a matter than Butterwell. He would go as the world went, but he would perceive almost intuitively how the world intended to go. "Tact, tact, tact," as he was in the habit of saying to himself when walking along the paths of his Putney villa. Crosbie was now secretary, whereas a few months before he had been simply a clerk; but, nevertheless, Mr. Butterwell's instinct told him that Crosbie had fallen. Therefore he declined to offer any sympathy to the man in his misfortune, and felt aware, as he left the secretary's room, that it might probably be some time before he visited it again.

Crosbie resolved in his soreness that henceforth he would brazen it out. He would go to the Board, with as much indifference as to his black eye as he was able to assume, and if any one said aught to him he would be ready with his answer. He would go to his club, and let him who intended to show him any slight beware of him in his wrath.

He could not turn upon John Eames, but he could turn upon others if it were necessary. He had not gained for himself a position before the world, and held it now for some years, to allow himself to be crushed at once because he had made a mistake. If the world, his world, chose to go to war with him, he would be ready for the fight.

As for Butterwell,--Butterwell the incompetent, Butterwell the vapid,--for Butterwell, who in every little official difficulty had for years past come to him, he would let Butterwell know what it was to be thus disloyal to one who had condescended to be his friend. He would show them all at the Board that he scorned them, and could be their master. Then, too, as he was making some other resolves as to his future conduct, he made one or two resolutions respecting the De Courcy people. He would make it known to them that he was not going to be their very humble servant. He would speak out his mind with considerable plainness; and if upon that they should choose to break off this "alliance," they might do so; he would not break his heart.

And as he leaned back in his arm-chair, thinking of all this, an idea made its way into his brain,--a floating castle in the air, rather than the image of a thing that might by possibility be realized; and in this castle in the air he saw himself kneeling again at Lily's feet, asking her pardon, and begging that he might once more be taken to her heart.

"Mr. Crosbie is here to-day," said Mr. Butterwell to Mr. Optimist.

"Oh, indeed," said Mr. Optimist, very gravely; for he had heard all about the row at the railway station.

"They've made a monstrous show of him."

"I am very sorry to hear it. It's so--so--so-- If it were one of the younger clerks, you know, we should tell him that it was discreditable to the department."

"If a man gets a blow in the eye, he can't help it, you know. He didn't do it himself, I suppose," said Major Fiasco.

"I am well aware that he didn't do it himself," continued Mr.

Optimist; "but I really think that, in his position, he should have kept himself out of any such encounter."

"He would have done so if he could, with all his heart," said the major. "I don't suppose he liked being thrashed any better than I should."

"Nobody gives me a black eye," said Mr. Optimist.

"Nobody has as yet," said the major.

"I hope they never will," said Mr. Butterwell. Then, the hour for their meeting having come round, Mr. Crosbie came into the Board-room.

"We have been very sorry to hear of this misfortune," said Mr.

Optimist, very gravely.

"Not half so sorry as I have been," said Crosbie, with a laugh. "It's an uncommon nuisance to have a black eye, and to go about looking like a prize-fighter."

"And like a prize-fighter that didn't win his battle, too," said Fiasco.

"I don't know that there's much difference as to that," said Crosbie.

"But the whole thing is a nuisance, and, if you please, we won't say anything more about it."

Mr. Optimist almost entertained an opinion that it was his duty to say something more about it. Was not he the chief Commissioner, and was not Mr. Crosbie secretary to the Board? Ought he, looking at their respective positions, to pass over without a word of notice such a manifest impropriety as this? Would not Sir Raffle Buffle have said something had Mr. Butterwell, when secretary, come to the office with a black eye? He wished to exercise all the full rights of a chairman; but, nevertheless, as he looked at the secretary he felt embarrassed, and was unable to find the proper words. "H--m, ha, well; we'll go to business now, if you please," he said, as though reserving to himself the right of returning to the secretary's black eye when the more usual business of the Board should be completed.

But when the more usual business of the Board had been completed, the secretary left the room without any further reference to his eye.

Crosbie, when he got back to his own apartment, found Mortimer Gazebee waiting there for him.

"My dear fellow," said Gazebee, "this is a very nasty affair."

"Uncommonly nasty," said Crosbie; "so nasty that I don't mean to talk about it to anybody."

"Lady Amelia is quite unhappy." He always called her Lady Amelia, even when speaking of her to his own brothers and sisters. He was too well behaved to take the liberty of calling an earl's daughter by her plain Christian name, even though that earl's daughter was his own wife. "She fears that you have been a good deal hurt."

"Not at all hurt; but disfigured, as you see."

"And so you beat the fellow well that did it?"

"No, I didn't," said Crosbie, very angrily. "I didn't beat him at all. You don't believe everything you read in the newspapers, do you?"

"No, I don't believe everything. Of course I didn't believe about his having aspired to an alliance with Lady Alexandrina. That was untrue, of course." Mr. Gazebee showed by the tone of his voice that imprudence so unparalleled as that was quite incredible.

"You shouldn't believe anything; except this,--that I have got a black eye."

"You certainly have got that. Lady Amelia thinks you would be more comfortable if you would come up to us this evening. You can't go out, of course; but Lady Amelia said, very good-naturedly, that you need not mind with her."

"Thank you, no; I'll come on Sunday."