Robbie. It would never do to risk making a scene in the man's drawing-room; so the first thing I had to attend to was to have you warned. The name I go by is Ducie, too, in case of accidents.'
'I--I say, you know!' cried Ronald. 'Deuce take it, what are you doing here?'
'Hush, hush!' said I. 'Not the place, my dear fellow--not the place. Come to my rooms, if you like, to-night after the party, or to-morrow in the morning, and we can talk it out over a segar. But here, you know, it really won't do at all.'
Before he could collect his mind for an answer, I had given him my address in St. James Square, and had again mingled with the crowd. Alas! I was not fated to get back to Flora so easily! Mr. Robbie was in the path: he was insatiably loquacious; and as he continued to palaver I watched the insipid youths gather again about my idol, and cursed my fate and my host. He remembered suddenly that I was to attend the Assembly Ball on Thursday, and had only attended to- night by way of a preparative. This put it into his head to present me to another young lady; but I managed this interview with so much art that, while I was scrupulously polite and even cordial to the fair one, I contrived to keep Robbie beside me all the time and to leave along with him when the ordeal was over. We were just walking away arm in arm, when I spied my friend the Major approaching, stiff as a ramrod and, as usual, obtrusively clean.
'Oh! there's a man I want to know,' said I, taking the bull by the horns. 'Won't you introduce me to Major Chevenix?'
'At a word, my dear fellow,' said Robbie; and 'Major!' he cried, 'come here and let me present to you my friend Mr. Ducie, who desires the honour of your acquaintance.'
The Major flushed visibly, but otherwise preserved his composure. He bowed very low. 'I'm not very sure,' he said: 'I have an idea we have met before?'
'Informally,' I said, returning his bow; 'and I have long looked forward to the pleasure of regularising our acquaintance.'
'You are very good, Mr. Ducie,' he returned. 'Perhaps you could aid my memory a little? Where was it that I had the pleasure?'
'Oh, that would be telling tales out of school,' said I, with a laugh, 'and before my lawyer, too!'
'I'll wager,' broke in Mr. Robbie, 'that, when you knew my client, Chevenix--the past of our friend Mr. Ducie is an obscure chapter full of horrid secrets--I'll wager, now, you knew him as St. Ivey,' says he, nudging me violently.
'I think not, sir,' said the Major, with pinched lips.
'Well, I wish he may prove all right!' continued the lawyer, with certainly the worst-inspired jocularity in the world. 'I know nothing by him! He may be a swell mobsman for me with his aliases. You must put your memory on the rack, Major, and when ye've remembered when and where ye met him, be sure ye tell me.'
'I will not fail, sir,' said Chevenix.
'Seek to him!' cried Robbie, waving his hand as he departed.
The Major, as soon as we were alone, turned upon me his impassive countenance.
'Well,' he said, 'you have courage.'
'It is undoubted as your honour, sir,' I returned, bowing.
'Did you expect to meet me, may I ask?' said he.
'You saw, at least, that I courted the presentation,' said I.
'And you were not afraid?' said Chevenix.
'I was perfectly at ease. I knew I was dealing with a gentleman. Be that your epitaph.'
'Well, there are some other people looking for you,' he said, 'who will make no bones about the point of honour. The police, my dear sir, are simply agog about you.'
'And I think that that was coarse,' said I.
'You have seen Miss Gilchrist?' he inquired, changing the subject.
'With whom, I am led to understand, we are on a footing of rivalry?' I asked. 'Yes, I have seen her.'
'And I was just seeking her,' he replied.
I was conscious of a certain thrill of temper; so, I suppose, was he. We looked each other up and down.
'The situation is original,' he resumed.
'Quite,' said I. 'But let me tell you frankly you are blowing a cold coal.