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Volume One – Chapter Thirteen.
A Night-Bird Trapped
It was, as Morton Denville said, cold and cheerless at his home, and the proceedings that night endorsed his words, as at half-past ten, after the servants had been dismissed, his father rose to seek his sleepless couch.
Claire rose at the same moment, starting from a silent musing fit, while Morton threw down the book he had been reading in a very ill-used way.
“Good-night, my son,” said Denville, holding out his hand, and grasping the lad’s with unusual fervour. “Good-night, father.”
“And you’ll mind and be particular now, my boy. I am sure that at last I can advance your prospects.”
“Oh, yes, father, I’ll be particular.”
“Don’t let people see you fishing there again.” “No, father, I’ll take care. Good-night. Coming Claire?” Claire had put away her needlework, and was standing cold and silent by the table.
“Good-night, Claire, my child,” said Denville, with a piteous look and appeal in his tone.
“Good-night, father.”
She did not move as the old man took a couple of steps forward and kissed her brow, laying his hands afterwards upon her head and muttering a blessing.
Then, in spite of her efforts, a chill seemed to run through her, and she trembled, while he, noting it, turned away with a look of agony in his countenance that he sought to conceal, and sank down in the nearest chair.
He seemed to be a totally different man, and those who had seen him upon the cliff and pier would not have recognised in him the fashionable fribble, whose task it was to direct the flight of the butterflies of the Assembly Room, and preside at every public dance.
“Aren’t you going to bed, father?” said Morton, trying to speak carelessly.
“Yes, yes, my son, yes. I only wish to think out my plans a little – your commission, and other matters.”
“I hope he won’t be long,” muttered Morton as he left the room. “Why, Claire, how white and cold you are! There, hang me if it isn’t enough to make a fellow sell himself to that old Lady Drelincourt for the sake of getting money to take care of you. If I’d got plenty, you should go abroad for a change.”
Claire kissed him affectionately.
“Hang me if I don’t begin to hate May. She doesn’t seem like a sister to us. Been here to-day, hasn’t she? I heard they’d come back.”
“Yes,” said Claire with a sigh.
“It was cowardly of them to go off like that, when you were in such trouble. You did not have a single woman come and say a kind word when —that was in the house.”
“Don’t speak of it, dear,” said Claire. “Mrs Barclay came, though.”
“Rum old girl! I always feel ready to laugh at her.”
“She has a heart of gold.”
“Old Barclay has a box of gold, and nice and tightly he keeps it locked up. I say, he’ll sell us up some day.”
“Morton dear, I can’t bear to talk to you to-night; and don’t speak like that of May. She has her husband to obey.”
“Bless him!” cried Morton musingly. “Good-night, Sis.”
He kissed her affectionately, and a faint smile came into Claire’s wan face, as it seemed to comfort her in her weary sorrow. Then they parted, and she went to her room, opened the window, and sat with her face among the flowers, watching the sea and thinking of some one whom she had in secret seen pass by there at night.
That was a dream of the past, she told herself now, for it could never be. Love, for her, was dead; no man could call her wife with such a secret as she held in her breast, and as she thought on, her misery seemed greater than she could bear.
The tide was well up, and the stars glittered in the heaving bosom of the sea as she sat and gazed out; and then all at once her heart seemed to stand still, and then began beating furiously, for a familiar step came slowly along the cobble-paved walk in front of the house, along by the railed edge of the cliff, and then for a moment she could see the tall, dark figure she knew so well, gazing wistfully up at the window.
She knew he loved her; she knew that her heart had gone out to him, though their acquaintance was of the most distant kind. She knew, too, how many obstacles poverty had thrown in the way of both, but some day, she had felt, all would be swept away. Now all that was past. She must never look at him again.
She shrank from the window, and sank upon her knees, weeping softly for the unattainable, as she felt how he must love her, and that his heart was with her in sympathy with all her trouble.
“Dead – dead – dead,” she moaned; “my love is dead, and my life-course broadly marked out, so that I cannot turn to the right or left.”
She started and shuddered, for below her there was the tread of a heavy foot. She heard her father’s slight cough, and his closing door, and at the same moment, as if it were he who separated them, the step outside could be heard returning, and Claire arose and crept to the window again to listen till it died away.
“Dead – dead – my love is dead,” she moaned again, and closing the window, she strove to forget her agony of mind and the leaden weight that seemed to rest upon her brow in sleep.
Eleven had struck, and two quarters had chimed before Morton Denville dared to stir. He had waited with open door, listening impatiently for his father’s retiring; he had listened to the steps outside; and then at last, with all the eagerness of a boy, in spite of his near approach to manhood, and excited by the anticipations of the fishing, and the romance of the little adventure, he stole forth with his shoes in his hands, after carefully closing the catch of his well-oiled door.
The crucial part was the passing of the end of the passage leading to his father’s room, and here he paused for a few moments, but he fancied he could hear a long-drawn breathing, and, after a hasty glance at the door of the back drawing-room, erst Lady Teigne’s chamber, he opened the drawing-room door, stepped in and closed it.
He breathed more freely now, but a curious chill ran through him, and he felt ready to retreat as he saw that the folding-doors were not closed, and that the faint light from the back window made several articles of furniture look grotesque and strange.
“Here am I, just twenty, and as cowardly as a girl,” he muttered. “I won’t be afraid.”
All the same, though, his heart beat violently, and he shrank from moving for some minutes.
“And Dick waiting,” he muttered.
Those words gave him the strength he sought, and, going on tiptoe across the room, half feeling as if a hand were going to be laid upon his shoulder to keep him back, he drew aside the blind, opened the French window, passed out, closed it after him, and stood there in the balcony, gazing at the heaving, star-spangled sea.
“I can’t be a man yet,” he said to himself. “If I were I shouldn’t feel so nervous. It is very horrid, though, the first time after that old woman was killed; and by some one coming up there. Ugh! it’s very creepy. I half fancied I could hear the old girl snoring as she used.”
He leaned over the balcony rails and looked to right and left, but all seemed silent in the sleeping town, and after listening for a minute or two he seized the support of the balcony roof, stepped over the rails, lowered himself a little, and clasping the pillar with his legs, slid easily down, rested for a moment on the railings with his feet between the spikes, and then, clasping the pillar, dropped lightly down upon the pavement, to be seized by two strong hands by arm and throat, a dark figure having stepped out of the doorway to hold him fast.
Volume One – Chapter Fourteen.
Something Thrown in the Sea
“What – ”
“Hush! Who are you? What are you doing here? Why, Morton Denville!”
“Richard Linnell! Is it you? Oh, I say, you did give me a scare. I thought it was that chap come again.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, the fellow who did that, you know,” said the lad with a nod upwards.
“But why have you stolen down like this, sir?”
“Don’t talk so loud; you’ll wake the old man. Only going fishing.”
“Fishing? Now?”
“Yes. Fisherman Dick’s waiting for me on the pier.”
“Is this true?” asked Linnell sternly. “True! What do you mean?” said the lad haughtily. “Did you ever know a Denville tell a lie?”
“No, of course not. But it looks bad, young fellow, to see you stealing out of the house like this, and after that ghastly affair.”
“Hush, don’t talk about it,” said the lad with a shudder. “But, I say, how came you here?”
“I – I – ” stammered Linnell. “Oh, I was walking along the cliff and I saw the window open. I thought something was wrong, and I crossed to see.”
“Did you think some one had come to run away with my sister, Mr Linnell?” said the lad with a sneering laugh. “Ah, well, you needn’t have been alarmed, and if they had it would have been no business of yours.”
Richard Linnell drew his breath with a faint hiss.
“That’s rather a sneering remark, young gentleman,” he said coldly; “but there, I don’t want to quarrel with you.”
“All the same to me if you did, only if you will take a bit of good advice, stop at home, and don’t be hanging about gentlemen’s houses at this time of night. It looks bad. There, now you can knock at the door and ring them up and tell them I’ve gone fishing. I don’t care.”
He thrust his hands in his pockets and strutted away, trying to appear very manly and independent, but nature would not permit him to look like anything but a big, overgrown boy.
Richard Linnell drew his breath again with the same low hiss, and stood watching the retiring figure, after which he followed the boy along the cliff till he saw him reach the pier, where a gruff voice greeted him; and, satisfied that the truth had been spoken, he turned off and went home.
“Thought you wasn’t coming, lad,” said Fisherman Dick. “Here, just you ketch hold o’ yon basket, and let’s get to work.”
Morton seized the basket of bait, and together they walked to the very end of the pier, at one corner of which was a gangway and some steps, down which they went to a platform of open beams, moist with spray, and only about a foot above the water now the tide was high, the promenade forming the ceiling above their heads.
It was very dark, and the damp, salt smell of the weed that hung to the piles was floating around, while the misty spray every now and then moistened their hands and faces. On all sides huge square wooden piles rose up, looking grim and strange in the gloom, and before them the star-spangled sea heaved and sank, and heaved and sighed and whispered in amongst the woodwork, every now and then seeming to give a hungry smack as if the waves were the lips of some monstrous mouth, trying to seize upon the two fishers for its prey.
“Didn’t I tell you?” said Dick Miggles: “Sea’s just right, and the fish’ll bite like anything. We ought to get ten shillings’ worth to-night. There you are; go ahead.”
Dick had been busy unwinding a line, whose hooks he had already baited; and then, for the next quarter of an hour they were busy catching and hauling in whiting and large dabs, and every now and then a small conger, the basket filling rapidly.
Then, all at once, the fish ceased biting, and they sat waiting and feeling the lines, trying to detect a touch.
“Some one coming,” said Dick suddenly, in a low whisper. “What’s he want to-night?”
“Sh!” whispered back Morton. “Don’t speak, or I shall be found out.”
“Right,” answered Dick in the same low tone; and as they sat there in the darkness with the water lapping just beneath them, and a wave coming in among the piles every now and then with a hiss and a splash, they could hear the slow, firm tread of some one coming down the pier, right to the end, to stand there as if listening, quite still above their heads.
All at once the night-breeze wafted to them the scent of a good cigar, and they knew that whoever it was must be smoking.
At the same moment, Morton felt a tug at his line, and he knew a fish had hooked itself.
It was all he could do to keep from dragging it in; but he was, in spite of his boasting, afraid of his nocturnal expedition coming to his father’s ears, and he remained still.
Fisherman Dick had moved so silently that Morton had not heard him; but all at once the planks overhead seemed veined with light, and the figure of the fisherman could be seen dimly, with his face close up to a hole in the planking. The light died out as quickly as it shone, and the odour of tobacco diffused itself again, while the man overhead began to walk slowly up and down.
Tug-tug-tug! How that fish – a big one, too – did pull! But Morton resisted the temptation, and waited, till all at once it seemed to him that the smoker must have heard them, and was about to come down, for he was evidently listening.
Then there was a shuffling of feet, a curious expiration of the breath, and a sort of grunt, followed by utter silence; and then, some fifty yards away, right in front of where Morton sat, there was a faint golden splash in the sea, and the noise of, as it were, a falling stone or piece of wood.
Almost at the same moment Morton noticed that his line had become phosphorescent, and he could see it for some distance down as the fish he had hooked dragged it here and there.
Then there was a sigh overhead as of relief, and the steps were heard again, gradually going back along the pier, and dying slowly away.
Simultaneously, Morton Denville and the fisherman began hauling in their lines, the former listening the while, to make sure that the promenader did not return; and then, as all was silent, their captives were drawn on to the open planking, to break the silence with flapping and beating and tangling the lines.
“What light was that, Dick?” said Morton, as he threw his fish into the basket.
“Dunno, zackly. Some way o’ lighting another cigar.”
“Who was it – could you see?”
“How’s it likely I could see, squintin’ through a hole like that? Some ’un or ’nother stretching his legs, ’cause he ain’t got no work to do, I s’pose.”
“But couldn’t you see his face?”
“See his face? Is it likely? Just you get up and look through that hole. Why, I had to look straight up, then sidewise, and then straight up again, and that bends your sight about so as you couldn’t even do anything with a spyglass.”
“I believe you could see who it was, and won’t tell me.”
“Hear that, now! Why shouldn’t I want to tell? Says you, I’m out on the sly, and nobody mustn’t know I’m here.”
“No, I didn’t,” said Morton shortly.
“Well, lad, not in words you didn’t; but that’s how it seemed to be, so I kep’ as quiet as I could, and whoever it was didn’t hear us.”
“What did he throw into the water?”
“Stone, I s’pose. Some o’ them dandy jacks, as looks as if they couldn’t move in their clothes, once they gets alone, nothing they likes better than throwing stones in the water. If it wasn’t that the waves washes ’em up again, they’d have throwed all Saltinville into the sea years ago.”
Two hours later, after a very successful night’s sport, Morton parted from Fisherman Dick at the shore end of the pier, and ran home, while the owner of the lines and the heavy basket sat down on the lid, and rubbed the back of his head.
“Yes, I did see his face, as plain as I ever see one, but I warn’t going to tell you so, Master Morton, my lad. What did he chuck inter the sea, and what did he chuck it there for?”
Fisherman Dick sat thinking for a few minutes, and shaking his head, before saying aloud:
“No; it didn’t sound like a stone.”
After which he had another think, and then he got up, shouldered his basket, and went homeward, saying:
“I shall have to find out what that there was.”
Volume One – Chapter Fifteen.
Miss Clode’s Library
Miss Clode’s library and fancy bazaar stood facing the sea – so near, indeed, that on stormy days she was occasionally compelled to have the green shutters up to protect the window-panes from the spray and shingle that were driven across the road. But on fine days it was open to the sunshine, and plenty of cane-seated chairs were ranged about the roomy shop.
The back was formed of a glass partition, pretty well covered with books, but not so closely as to hide the whole shop from the occupants of the snug parlour, where little, thin Miss Clode sat one fine morning, like a dried specimen of her niece, Annie Slade, a stout young lady nicknamed Dumpling by the bucks who made the place a sort of social exchange.
The shop was well fitted and carpeted. Glass cases, filled with gaily-dyed wools and silks, were on the counter. Glass cases were behind filled with knick-knacks and fancy goods, papier-maché trays and inkstands bright with mother-of-pearl, and ivory and ebony specimens of the turner’s art. Look where you would, everything was brightly polished, and every speck of dust had been duly hunted out. In fact, Miss Clode’s establishment whispered of prosperity, and suggested that the little eager-eyed maiden lady must be in the circumstances known as comfortable.
Business had not been very brisk that morning, but several customers had called to make purchases or to change books, and two of these latter had made purchases as well. In fact, it was rather curious, but when certain of her clients called, and Miss Clode introduced to their notice some special novelty, they always bought it without further consideration.
“You are such a clever business woman, auntie,” drawled her niece. “I wish I could sell things as fast as you.”
“Perhaps you will some day, my dear.”
“Lady Drelincourt bought that little Tunbridge needle-book for half a guinea, didn’t she, aunt?”
“Yes, my dear,” said Miss Clode, pursing up her thin lips.
“She couldn’t have wanted it, auntie,” drawled the girl. “I don’t believe she ever used a needle in her life.”
“Perhaps not, my dear, but she might want it for a present.”
“Oh, so she might; I never thought of that. Customers!” added the girl sharply, and rose to go into the shop.
“I’ll attend to them, my dear,” said Miss Clode quickly, and she entered the shop to smilingly confront Sir Harry Payne and Sir Matthew Bray.
“Well, Miss Clode, what’s the newest and best book for a man to read?”
“Really, Sir Harry, I am very sorry,” she said. “The coach has not brought anything fresh, but I expect a parcel down some time to-day. Perhaps you’d look in again?”
“Ah, well, I will,” he said. “Come along, Bray.”
“Have you seen these new card-cases, Sir Matthew?” said the little woman, taking half a dozen from a drawer. “They are real russia, and the gilding is of very novel design. Only a guinea, Sir Matthew, and quite new.”
“Ah, yes, very handsome indeed. A guinea, did you say?” he said, turning the handsome leather case over and over.
“Yes, Sir Matthew. May I put it down to your account?”
“Well, ah, yes – I – ah, yes, I’ll take this one.”
“Thank you, Sir Matthew. I’ll wrap it up, please, in silver paper;” and, with deft fingers, the little woman wrapped up the purchase, handed it over with a smile, and the two friends strolled out for Sir Harry to give his friend a light touch in the side with the head of his cane, accompanied by a peculiar smile, which the other refused to see.
“How very anxious Sir Harry seems to be to get that new book, auntie,” drawled Annie, coming into the shop where Miss Clode was busily making an entry on her slate; “that makes twice he’s been here to-day.”
“Yes, my dear, he’s a great reader. But now, Annie, the time has come when I think I may take you into my confidence.”
“La, auntie, do you?”
“I do, and mind this, child: if ever you are foolish or weak, or do anything to betray it, you leave me directly, and that will be a very serious thing.”
Miss Slade’s jaw fell, and her mouth opened widely, as did her eyes.
“Ah, I see you understand, so now come here with me.”
Miss Slade obeyed, and followed her aunt into the middle room at the back, where, by means of a match dipped into a bottle of phosphorus. Miss Clode obtained a light and ignited a little roll of wax taper, and then, as her niece watched her with open eyes as they sat at the table, the lady took a small letter from her pocket and laid it with its sealed side uppermost on the table.
“Why, I saw Sir Harry Payne give you that letter this morning, auntie, when he came first.”
“Oh, you saw that, did you?” said Miss Clode.
“Yes, auntie, and I thought first he had given it to you to post, and then as you didn’t send me with it, I wondered why he had written to you.”
“He did give it to me to post, my dear,” said Miss Clode with a curious smile, “and before I post it I am bound to see that he has not written anything that is not good for the la – person it is for.”
“Oh, yes, auntie, I see,” said Miss Slade, resting her fat cheeks on her fat fingers, and watching attentively as her aunt took out a seal from a tin box, one that looked as if it were made of putty, and compared it with the sealing-wax on the letter.
This being satisfactory, she cleverly held the wax to the little taper till it began to bubble and boil, when it parted easily, the paper being drawn open and only some silky threads of wax securing it, these being at once brushed aside.
“Oh, you have got it open lovely, auntie,” said the girl.
“Yes, my dear; and now I am going to read it,” said Miss Clode, suiting the deed to the word, skimming through the note rapidly, and then refolding it.
“Oh, I say, auntie, what does he say?” said the girl with her eyes sparkling. “Is it about love?”
“Don’t ask questions, and you will not get strange answers,” said Miss Clode austerely, as she deftly melted the wax once more, and applied the well-made bread seal, after which there was nothing to show that the letter had been opened. “I see, though, that it was quite time I did trust you, my dear, and I hope I shall have no cause to repent.”
Just then a customer entered the shop, and again Miss Clode went to attend.
“I know it was a love-letter,” said Annie quickly; “and it was Sir Harry Payne wrote it. I wonder who it was to. I wish he’d make love to me.”
Miss Clode came back directly with a volume of poems in her hand – a new copy, and looking significantly at her niece she said:
“I’m going to post that letter, my dear. Don’t you touch it, mind.”
As she spoke she thrust the note between the leaves, and then walked into the shop with her niece, and placed the book upon a shelf.
“There, if you behave yourself you shall see who buys those poems; but, once more, never a word to a soul.”
“Oh, no, auntie, never,” said the girl, with her big eyes rolling. “But oh, I say, auntie, isn’t it fun?”
“Isn’t what fun?”
“I know,” giggled the girl; “there was a letter in that card-case you sold. I saw you put it there.”
“Well, well, perhaps there was, my dear. I must oblige customers, and the profits on things are so small, and rents so high. We must live, you see. And now mind this: if Mrs Frank Burnett comes, you call me.”
“Couldn’t I sell her that volume of poems, auntie?” said the girl eagerly.
“No, certainly not; and now look here, miss. Don’t you ever pretend to be simple any more.”
“No, auntie,” said the girl, “I won’t;” and she drew her breath thickly and gave a smack with her lips, as if she were tasting something very nice.
Loungers dropped in, and loungers dropped out, coming for the most part to meet other loungers, and, like the Athenians of old, to ask whether there was anything new. Sometimes Miss Clode was consulted, and when this was the case, her way was soft, deprecating, and diffident. She thought she had heard this; she believed that she had heard that; she would endeavour to find out; or, yes, to be sure, her ladyship was right: it was so, she remembered now. While when not invited to give opinions, she was busy in the extreme over some item connected with her business, and hearing and seeing nothing, with that bended head so intent upon arranging, or booking, or tying up.
There was very little, though, that Miss Clode did not hear, especially when some one of a group said, “Oh, fie!” or “No, really, now!” or “How shocking!” and there was a little burst of giggles.
In due time, just as Miss Clode was instructing her niece in the art of tying up a packet of wools, so that one end was left open and the dealer could see at a glance what colours it contained, Annie’s jaw dropped, and seemed to draw down the lower lids of her eyes, so that they were opened to the fullest extent, for Frank Burnett’s handsome britzka drew up at the door, the steps were rattled down, flip, flop, flap, with a vigorous action that would bring people to the windows to see, and, all sweetness in appearance and odour, like the blossom she was, the MC’s idol stepped daintily rustling down, the very model of all that was naïve and girlish.
“Who’d ever think she was a wife?” said Miss Clode to herself.
“Oh my! isn’t she pretty?” said Annie.
“Go on tying up those packets, and don’t take any notice,” said Miss Clode; and then, with the greatest of deference, wished her visitor good-morning, and begged to know how she was.
“Not very well, Miss Clode: so tired. Society is so exacting. Can you recommend me any book that will distract me a little?”
“Let me see, ma’am,” said Miss Clode, turning her head on one side in a very bird-like way, and bending forward as if she were going to peck a seed off the counter.
“Something that will really take me out of myself.”
“The last romance might be too exciting, ma’am?”
“Do you think it would?”
“Ye-e-e-es. Oh, yes, decidedly so in your case, ma’am,” said Miss Clode, in quite the tone of a female physician. “Poems – soft, dreamy, soothing poems, now, would I think be most suited.”
“Oh, do you think so?” said Mrs Burnett half pettishly.
“Yes, ma’am, I have a volume here, not included in the library, but for sale – ‘Lays of the Heart-strings’ – by a gentleman of quality. I should recommend it strongly.”
“Oh, dear no,” exclaimed the visitor, as Miss Clode took the work from the shelf. “I don’t think a – well, I will look at it,” she said, blushing vividly, as she saw that the book did not thoroughly close in one part. “Perhaps you are right, Miss Clode. I will take it. What is the price?”
“Half a guinea, ma’am, to subscribers, and I will call you a subscriber. Shall I do it up in paper?”
“Yes, by all means. What delightful weather we are having!”
“Delightful, indeed, ma’am,” said Miss Clode, whose face was simply business-like. There was not a nerve-twitch, not a peculiar glance to indicate that she was playing a double part; and it was wonderfully convenient. Visitors both ladies and gentlemen, liked it immensely, and patronised her accordingly, for no Artesian well was ever so deep and dark as Miss Clode, or as silent. She knew absolutely nothing. Mrs Frank Burnett had bought a volume of poems at her establishment, that was all. Anybody might have slipped the note inside. While as to seeking a client’s confidence, or alluding in the mildest way to any little transaction that had taken place for the sake of obtaining further fee or reward, any client would have told you that with the purchase of book, album, card-case, or needle-housewife, every transaction was at an end; and so Miss Clode’s business throve, and Lord Carboro’ called her the Saltinville sphinx.
“Is there any particular news stirring, Miss Clode?”
“Really, no, ma’am,” said that lady, pausing in the act of cutting the twine that confined the book. “A new family has come to the George; and, by the way, I have to send their cards to Mr Denville.”
“Oh, of course, I don’t want to know anything about that,” said Mrs Burnett hastily.
“The officers are talking of getting up a ball before long, and they say that a certain person will be there.”
“Indeed!” said the visitor, flushing.
“Yes, ma’am, I was told so, and – ahem! – here is Lord Carboro’. Half a guinea, ma’am, if you please.”
Surely there was no occasion for a lady to look so flushed in the act of extricating a little gold coin from her purse; but somehow the ordinary sweet ingenuous look would not come back to May Burnett’s face, any more than the coin would consent to come out of the little, long net purse with gold tassels and slides; and the colour deepened as the keen little eyes of the old man settled for a moment on the tied-up book, and then on Miss Clode’s face.
“What an old sphinx it is,” he thought to himself. “The day grows brighter every hour, Mrs Burnett,” he said gallantly. “It has culminated in the sight of you.”
“Your lordship’s compliments are overpowering,” said the lady, with a profound curtsey; and then she secured her book and would have fled, but his lordship insisted upon escorting her to her carriage, hat in hand, and he cursed that new pomade in a way that was silent but not divine, for it lifted one side of his hair as if he were being scalped when he raised his hat.
“Good-morning, good-morning!” he said, as the carriage drove off. “Little wretch,” he muttered as he watched the equipage out of sight, but with his hat on now. “I hate scandal, but if we don’t have a toothsome bit before long over that little woman, I’m no man. It’s vexatious, too,” he said angrily, “doosid vexatious. I don’t like it. So different to the other, and our sweet Christians here will throw dirt at both. Can’t help it; can’t help it. Well, Miss Clode, anything you want to recommend to me?”
“Yes, my lord, I have a very charming little tortoise-shell-covered engagement-book or two. Most elegant and very cheap.”
“I don’t want cheap things, my dear little woman. Let me see, let me see. Oh, yes, very nice indeed,” he said, opening the case, and letting a scented note drop out on the counter. “Same make, I see, as the cigar-case I bought last week.”
“No, my lord, it is French.”
“No, no – no, no; don’t tell me – English, English. People have stuck their advertisement in. Send it back to ’em. Do for some one else.”
“Then your lordship does not like the case?”
“My dear little woman, but I do, doosidly, but don’t offer me any more with that person’s circular inside. There, there, there; take the price out of that five-pound note. Two guineas? And very cheap too. Doosid pretty little piece of art, Miss Clode. Doosid pretty little piece of art.”
