"If any good has come of this sorry business," said I gravely, "I'm only too grateful to Providence."

He caught the seriousness of my tone.

"I didn't want to touch on that side of it," he said awkwardly. "I know what an infernal time you had! It must have been Gehenna. I realise now that it was on my account, and so I can never do enough to show my grat.i.tude."

He finished his gla.s.s of whisky and walked about the tiny room.

"What has always licked me," he said at length, "is why she never told me she was married. It's so curious, for she was as straight as they make them. It's devilish odd!"

"Yes," I a.s.sented wearily, for every word of this talk was a new pain.

"Devilish odd!"

"I suppose it's a question of cla.s.s again."

"Or s.e.x," said I.

"What has s.e.x to do with being straight?"

"Everything," said I.

"Rot!" said Dale.

I sighed. "I wish your dialectical vocabulary were not so limited."

He laughed and clapped me on the shoulder.

"Still the same old Simon. It does my heart good to hear you. May I have another whisky?"

I took advantage of this break to change the conversation. He had told me nothing of his own affairs save that he was engaged to Maisie Ellerton.

"Heavens!" cried he. "Isn't that enough?"

"An engagement isn't an occupation."

"Isn't it, by Jove?" He laughed boyishly. "I manage, however, to squeeze in a bit of work now and then. The mater has always got plenty on hand for me, and I do things for Raggles. He has been awfully decent. The first time I met him or any of the chiefs after the election I was in a blue funk. But no one seemed to blame me; they all said they were sorry; and now Raggles is looking out for a const.i.tuency for me to nurse for the next General Election. Then things _will_ hum, I promise you!"

He waved his cigar with the air of a young paladin about to conquer the world. In spite of my own depression, I could not help smiling with gladness at the sight of him. With his extravagantly cut waistcoat, his elaborately exquisite white tie, his perfectly fitting evening clothes, with his supple ease of body, his charming manner, the preposterous fellow made as gallant a show as any ruffling blade in powder and red-heeled shoes. He had acquired, too, an extra touch of manhood since I had seen him last. I felt proud of him, conscious that to the making of him I had to some small degree contributed.

"You must come out and lunch with Maisie and me one day this week," said he. "She would love to see you."

"Wait till you're married," said I, "and then we'll consider it. At present Maisie is under the social dominion of her parents."

"Well--what of it?"

"Just that," said I.

Then the truth dawned on him. He grew excited and said it was d.a.m.nable.

He wasn't going to stand by and see people believe a lot of scandalous lies about me. He had no idea people had given me the cold shoulder. He would jolly well (such were his words) take a something (I forget the adjective) megaphone and trumpet about society what a splendid fellow I was.

"I'll tell everybody the whole silly-a.s.s story about myself from beginning to end," he declared.

I checked him. "You're very generous, my dear boy," said I, "but you'll do me a favour by letting folks believe what they like." And then I explained, as delicately as I could, how his sudden championship could be of little advantage to me, and might do him considerable harm.

In his impetuous manner he cut short my carefully-expressed argument.

"Rubbish! Heaps of people I know are already convinced that I was keeping Lola Brandt and that you took her from me in the ordinary vulgar way--"

"Yes, yes," I interrupted, shrinking. "That's why I order you, in G.o.d's name, to leave the whole thing alone."

"But confound it, man! I've come out of it all right, why shouldn't you?

Even supposing Lola was a loose woman--"

I threw up my hand. "Stop!"

He looked disconcerted for a moment.

"We know she isn't, but for the sake of argument--"

"Don't argue," said I. "Let us drop it."

"But hang it all!" he shouted in desperation. "Can't I do something!

Can't I go and kick somebody?"

I lost my self-control. I rose and put both my hands on his shoulders and looked him in the eyes.

"You can kick anybody you please whom you hear breathe a word against the honour and purity of Madame Lola Brandt."

Then I walked away, knowing I had betrayed myself, and tried to light a cigar with fingers that shook. There was a pause. Dale stood with his back to the fireplace, one foot on the fender. The cigar took some lighting. The pause grew irksome.

"My regard for Madame Brandt," said I at last, "is such that I don't wish to discuss her with any one." I looked at Dale and met his keen eyes fixed on me. The faintest shadow of a smile played about his mouth.

"Very well," said he dryly, "we won't discuss her. But all the same, my dear Simon, I can't help being interested in her; and as you're obviously the same, it seems rather curious that you don't know where she is."

"Do you doubt me?" I asked, somewhat staggered by his tone.

"Good Heaven's, no! But if she has disappeared, I'm convinced that something has happened which I know nothing of. Of course, it's none of my business."

There was a new and startling note of a.s.surance in his voice. Certainly he had developed during the past few months. What I had done, Heaven only knows. Misfortune, which is supposed to be formative of character, seemed to have turned mine into pie. How can I otherwise account for my not checking the lunatic impulse that prompted my next words.

"Well, something has happened," said I, "and if we're to be friends, you had better know it. Two days ago, for the first time, I told Madame Brandt that I loved her. This very afternoon I went to get her answer to my question--would she marry me?--and I found that she had disappeared without leaving any address behind her. So whenever you hear her name mentioned you can just tell everybody that she's the one woman in the whole wide world I want to marry."

"Poor old Simon," said Dale. "Poor old chap."

"That's exactly how things stand."

"Lord, who would have thought it?"

"How I've borne with you talking about her all this evening the devil only knows," I cried. "You've driven me half crazy."