Page:Edgar Jepson--the four philanthropists.djvu/55

Rh female whom he had no definite intention of marrying, had indeed no right to live.

I fancy that my conscience was setting itself at ease by painting Pudleigh in as black colors as possible. It need not have been at the pains; he was destined, and at once, to paint himself in blacker colors than any I could have found for him, for a hundred yards down Oxford Street he turned with his companion into a noxious Italian restaurant of the half-crown dinner type—he was worth two hundred thousand pounds.

Chelubai and I stopped short, exchanged one glance of extreme disgust, and followed them gloomily into it. Confronted by a half-crown Franco-Italian dinner—French cooking by Italians—our fine enthusiasm was clamped, our fine joy in the philanthropic endeavor fled, a cold resignation reigned dully in our hearts. We did not dare to look at the menu, but awaited the coming of the food in a painful silence. For my part, I no longer regarded Albert Amsted Pudleigh from the lofty, impersonal, philanthropic point of view; a savage bitterness against him began to seethe in my heart. I watched him and his inamorata with a cold malignity; and when I saw that she affected "the perfect lady" and minced, I wished that she had been included in our contract with Honest John Driver. The lingering delicacy with which she ate her food was terrible to see. They dallied