Barlow is delighted; he wouldn't mind
paying double the money to make those people a laughing-stock for
a week or two.'
They issued into the street, and walked on together; Milvain,
with his keen eye and critical smile, unmistakably the modern
young man who cultivates the art of success; his companion of a
less pronounced type, but distinguished by a certain subtlety of
countenance, a blending of the sentimental and the shrewd.
'Of course you know all about the Reardons?' said Whelpdale.
'Haven't seen or heard of them lately. What is it?'
'Then you don't know that they have parted?'
'Parted?'
'I only heard about it last night; Biffen told me. Reardon is
doing clerk's work at a hospital somewhere in the East-end, and
his wife has gone to live at her mother's house.'
'Ho, ho!' exclaimed Jasper, thoughtfully. 'Then the crash has
come. Of course I knew it must be impending. I'm sorry for
Reardon.'
'I'm sorry for his wife.'
'Trust you for thinking of women first, Whelpdale.'
'It's in an honourable way, my dear fellow. I'm a slave to women,
true, but all in an honourable way.
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