That house full of babies in St. John's Wood appeared to him now under a very different guise from that which it wore as he sat in his room at Courcy Castle on the evening of his arrival there. Then such an establishment had to him the flavour of a graveyard. It was as though he were going to bury himself alive. Now that it was out of his reach, he thought of it as a paradise upon earth. And then he considered what sort of a paradise Lady Alexandrina would make for him. It was astonishing how ugly was the Lady Alexandrina, how old, how graceless, how destitute of all pleasant charm, seen through the spectacles which he wore at the present moment.
During his first hour at the office he did nothing. One or two of the younger clerks came in and congratulated him with much heartiness. He was popular at his office, and they had got a step by his promotion. Then he met one or two of the elder clerks, and was congratulated with much less heartiness. 'I suppose it's all right,' said one bluff old gentleman. 'My time is gone by, I know. I married too early to be able to wear a good coat when I was young, and I never was acquainted with any lords or lords' families.' The sting of this was the sharper because Crosbie had begun to feel how absolutely useless to him had been all that high interest and noble connection which he had formed. He had really been promoted because he knew more about his work than any of the other men, and Lady de Courcy's influential relation at the India Board had not yet even had time to write a note upon the subject.
At eleven Mr Butterwell came into Crosbie's room, and the new secretary was forced to clothe himself in smiles. Mr Butterwell was a pleasant, handsome man of about fifty, who had never yet set the Thames on fire, and had never attempted to do so. He was perhaps a little more civil to great men and a little more patronising to those below him than he would have been had he been perfect. But there was something frank and English even in his mode of bowing before the mighty ones, and to those who were not mighty he was rather too civil than either stern or supercilious. He knew that he was not very clever, but he knew also how to use those who were clever. He seldom made any mistake, and was very scrupulous not to tread on men's corns. Though he had no enemies, yet he had a friend or two; and we may therefore say of Mr Butterwell that he had walked his path in life discreetly. At the age of thirty-five he had married a lady with some little fortune, and now he lived a pleasant, easy, smiling life in a villa at Putney. When Mr Butterwell heard, as he often did hear, of the difficulty which an English gentleman has of earning his bread in his own country, he was wont to look back on his own career with some complacency. He knew that he had not given the world much; yet he had received largely, and no one had begrudged it to him. 'Tact,' Mr Butterwell used to say to himself, as he walked along the paths of his Putney villa. 'Tact. Tact. Tact.'
'Crosbie,' he said, as he entered the room cheerily, 'I congratulate you with all my heart. I do, indeed. You have got the step early in life, and you deserve it thoroughly;—much better than I did when I was appointed to the same office.'
'Oh, no,' said Crosbie, gloomily.
'But I say, oh, yes. We are deuced lucky to have such a man, and so I told the commissioners.'
'I'm sure I'm very much obliged to you.'
'I've known it all along,—before you left even. Sir Raffle Buffle had told me he was to go to the Income-tax Office. The chair is two thousand there, you know; and I had been promised the first seat at the Board.'
'Ah;—I wish I'd known,' said Crosbie.
'You are much better as you are,' said Butterwell. 'There's no pleasure like a surprise! Besides, one knows a thing of that kind, and yet doesn't know it. I don't mind saying now that I knew it,—swearing that I knew it,—but I wouldn't have said so to a living being the day before yesterday. There are such slips between the cups and the lips. Suppose Sir Raffle had not gone to the Income-tax!'
'Exactly so,' said Crosbie.
'But it's all right now. Indeed I sat at the Board yesterday, though I signed the letter afterwards. I'm not sure that I don't lose more than I gain.'
'What! with three hundred a year more and less work?'
'Ah, but look at the interest of the thing. The secretary sees everything and knows everything. But I'm getting old, and, as you say, the lighter work will suit me. By-the-by, will you come down to Putney to-morrow? Mrs Butterwell will be delighted to see the new secretary. There's nobody in town now, so you can have no ground for refusing.'
But Mr Crosbie did find some ground for refusing. It would have been impossible for him to have sat and smiled at Mrs Butterwell's table in his present frame of mind. In a mysterious, half-explanatory manner, he let Mr Butterwell know that private affairs of importance made it absolutely necessary that he should remain that evening in town. 'And indeed,' as he said, 'he was not his own master just at present.' 'By-the-by,—of course not. I had quite forgotten to
