Page 204 of 490

How late it was! He sat up, and having sipped some tea, turned

over his letters. One of them was from Lord Henry, and had been

brought by hand that morning. He hesitated for a moment, and then

put it aside. The others he opened listlessly. They contained the

usual collection of cards, invitations to dinner, tickets for

private views, programmes of charity concerts, and the like that

are showered on fashionable young men every morning during the

season. There was a rather heavy bill for a chased silver

Louis-Quinze toilet-set that he had not yet had the courage to

send on to his guardians, who were extremely old-fashioned people

and did not realize that we live in an age when unnecessary

things are our only necessities; and there were several very

courteously worded communications from Jermyn Street

money-lenders offering to advance any sum of money at a moment's

notice and at the most reasonable rates of interest.