"I wish it were all over. I wouldn't do what I am doing for any one else, I can tell you, Frank."

"Mr. Stracey is in the hotel, sir."

"Will you give him my card, and say I should be glad to speak to him on a matter of importance?"

"Very good, sir."

(In an undertone to Frank), "Was that right?"

"Quite right."

"Oh, one thing I had forgotten to ask you--am I to shake hands with him?"

"You mean if he offers you his hand?"

"Yes."

"It is impossible to settle everything beforehand. One must act according as the occasion requires." "That's all very well for you, but I am a slow man, and am lost if I don't arrange beforehand."

"Pretend not to see his hand, and apologise for my presence; he will then see that we mean business."

"The waiting is the worst part."

"Will you walk this way, sir?" said the page boy. "Mr. Stracey is not out of bed yet, but he said if you wouldn't mind, sir."

They shrank from their enterprise instinctively, but the door was thrown open, and they saw a bath, and a sponge, and a towel, and Mr.

Stracey lying on his back reading _The Sporting Times_. He extended a long brawny arm. The strength of the arm fixed itself on w.i.l.l.y's mind, and he doubted if he had not better take the proffered hand.

"I brought my friend Mr. Escott with me, for I thought a witness--I mean, that this interview should be conducted in the presence of a third party."

At this speech Charlie opened his eyes and dropped his paper. w.i.l.l.y leaned over the rail of the bed; Frank looked into the bath, but remembering himself suddenly, he examined the chest of drawers.

"I have come to speak to you about my sister."

Charlie changed countenance, and both men noticed the change.

"I mean to say I have come to tell you that you must discontinue your visits to the Manor House, and I must beg of you not to address my sisters should you meet them."

"May I ask if you are your father's representative, if you speak with his authority?"

"I do not. I--"

"Then I should like to know on what authority you forbid me a house that doesn't belong to you, and I should like to know, if your father doesn't disapprove of my knowing your sisters, why you should? I shall speak to Miss Brookes as long as she cares to speak to me. The very idea of a man like you coming here to bully me! You have got my answer."

"If, after this warning," said Frank, who, seeing that things were going against them, thought he had better interfere, "you speak to Miss Brookes, you will do so at your peril."

"Peril! What do you mean?"

"I mean that you must be prepared to take the consequences."

"Who are you? I should like to know what you have to do in this matter?"

"I speak as Miss Brookes's future husband."

"Future husband be d.a.m.ned! She'll never marry you," said Charlie, springing out of bed.

Frank threw himself on his guard, and they would have struck each other if w.i.l.l.y had not cried out: "Frank, remember you promised me there must be no scandal."

"I had almost forgotten. For Miss Brookes's sake, I refrain. Do you also, for her sake, cease to provoke me."

Charlie hesitated for a moment, then rushing to the door, he said: "I, too, for Miss Brookes's sake, refrain, and I give you three seconds to clear out."

In attempting to carry out the injunction w.i.l.l.y nearly fell in the bath. Frank had to bite his lip to avoid a smile, and he stalked out of the room a.s.suming his most arrogant air.

"I think, on the whole, we got the best of it," he said as they went down stairs.

"Do you? He turned us out of his room!"

"That's the worst of tackling a man in his own room--if he tells you to go, and you don't go, he can ring for the servants."

"I was as nearly as possible going into the bath."

"Yes, a touch more and down you'd have gone." Frank laughed, and w.i.l.l.y laughed, "and that fellow in his nightshirt fishing you out!"

"Oh, don't, don't--"

Frank asked w.i.l.l.y to lunch with him at Mutton's, and he ordered a bottle of champagne in honour of the day.

"I say, just fancy pulling you out of the bath, and wiping you with a towel. I can see you dripping!"

"Don't set me off again. Let me enjoy my cutlets."

"By Jove! there's something I hadn't thought of."

"What's that?"

"We must be off. We must tell Maggie what has happened before he has time to communicate with her. What is the next train to Southwick?"

"There's one at half-past one."

"It was after twelve when we saw him, he won't have time to catch that. We must be off. Waiter, the bill, and be quick. Look sharp, w.i.l.l.y, finish the bottle, pity to waste it."

"What a nuisance women are, to be sure. Just as I was enjoying my cutlet! I can't walk fast in this weather, I should make myself ill."

"We must take a cab."

"What a fellow you are, you never think of the expense. I don't know where I should be if I were as reckless as you are."