第182章

'And that is why you want to go. A gentleman cannot live without his cigar now.'

'It is especially at your bidding that I am going to see him.'

'Go then--and make your friend understand that if he continues this picture of his, he will bring himself to great trouble, and will probably ruin the woman for whom he professes, I presume, to feel something like friendship. You may tell him that Mrs Van Siever has already heard of it.'

'Who told her?' demanded Johnny.

'Never mind. You need not look at me like that. It was not I. Do you suppose that secrets can be kept when so many people know them? Every servant in Maria's house knows all about it.'

'As for that, I don't suppose Mrs Broughton makes any great secret of it.'

'Do you think she has told Mrs Broughton? I am sure she has not. I may say that I know she has not. Maria Clutterbuck is infatuated. There is no other excuse to be made for her.'

'Good-bye,' said Johnny, hurriedly.

'And you are really going?'

'Well--yes. I suppose so.'

'Go then. I have nothing more to say to you.'

'I shall come and call directly I return,' said Johnny.

'You may do as you please about that, sir.'

'Do you mean that you won't be glad to see me again?'

'I am not going to flatter you, Mr Eames. Mamma will be well by that time, I hope, and I do not mind telling you that you are a favourite with her.' Johnny thought that this was particularly kind, as he had seen so very little of the old lady. 'If you choose to call upon her,' said Madalina, 'of course she will be glad to see you.'

'But I was speaking of yourself, you know?' and Johnny permitted himself for a moment to look tenderly at her.

'Then from myself pray understand that I will say nothing to flatter your self-love.'

'I thought you would be kinder just when I was going away.'

'I think I have been quite kind enough. As you observed yourself just now, it is nearly eleven o'clock, and I must ask you to go away. Bon voyage, and a happy return to you.'

'And you will be glad to see me when I am back? Tell that you will be glad to see me.'

'I will tell you nothing of the kind. Mr Eames, if you do, I will be very angry with you.' And then he went.

On his way back to his own lodgings he did call on Conway Dalrymple, and in spite of his need for early rising, sat smoking with the artist for an hour. 'If you don't take care, young man,' said his friend, 'you will find yourself in a scrape with your Madalina.'

'What sort of scrape?'

'As you walk away from Porchester Terrace some fine day, you will have to congratulate yourself on having made a successful overture towards matrimony.'

'You don't think I am such a fool as that comes to?'

'Other men as wise as you have done the same sought of thing. Miss Demolines is very clever, and I daresay you find it amusing.'

'It isn't so much that she's clever, and I can hardly say that it is amusing. One gets awfully tired of it, you know. But a fellow must have something to do, and that is as good as anything else.'

'I suppose you have not heard that one young man levanted last year to save himself from a breach of promise case?'

'I wonder whether he had any money in Indian securities?'

'What makes you ask that?'

'Nothing in particular.'

'Whatever little he chose to save, and I think that I heard that he went to Canada. His name was Shorter; and they say that, on the eve of his going, Madalina sent him word that she had no objection to the colonies, and that, under the pressing emergency of his expatriation, she was willing to become Mrs Shorter with more expedition than usually attends fashionable weddings. Shorter, however, escaped, and has never been seen back again.'

Eames declared that he did not believe a word of it. Nevertheless, as he walked home he came to the conclusion that if Mr Shorter must have been the handsome gentleman with Indian securities, to whom 'no' had been said once too often.

While sitting with Conway Dalrymple, he had forgotten to say a word about Jael and Sisera.