"News be d.a.m.ned!"

Mr. Townsend still smiled.

"By all means if you wish it. It is the same to me."

"You know very well what I have come for."

"I take it that you have come to bestow on me for a short period the charm of your society." The visitor scowled. His host but smiled the more. "Have anything to eat?"

"I'll have something to drink."

"You'll find all the ingredients on the sideboard. Help yourself, dear boy."

The visitor helped himself. As he stood at the sideboard pouring the liquor out into a gla.s.s his host sat watching him with amus.e.m.e.nt which was wholly unconcealed. The contrast between the two men was striking.

It would have forced itself on to the attention of the most casual spectator. The one weak, irritable almost to the point of peevishness; the other strong, unruffled, self-contained. The one with, in his whole bearing, that suggestion of self-a.s.sertion which is often but the child of shyness, but which none the less repels; the other with that easy, graceful, seemingly unconscious, personal magnetism which, in spite of oneself, attracts. One could understand how the one might be forgiven till seventy times seven, while the other would be condemned, without benefit of clergy, for his first offence.

Lord Archibald Beaupre returned to the easy-chair, armed with a tumbler of whisky and soda. He took a considerable drink. And then he spoke--morosely.

"It's the meeting of that cursed club to-night."

Mr. Townsend had watched his every movement, particularly seeming to note the quant.i.ty he had drunk--and still he smiled.

"So it is."

The other burst into a torrent of words.

"I wish I had never heard of it! I wish I had never had anything to do with it! I wish I had never had anything to do with any one of you! I wish----"

His emotions proved too much for him; he prematurely stopped.

"Wish it out." Mr. Townsend was lighting a cigarette. "And when you've wished it out, what then?"

"d.a.m.n you. You do nothing else but jibe and jeer at me."

"My dear Archie, your manners are not good."

"Curse my manners!"

"By all means, if you wish it. Only I am inclined to think there won't be very much to curse."

Lord Archibald ground out an oath between his teeth, and he groaned.

Mr. Townsend went on; he was enjoying his cigarette.

"By the way, have you done anything for the Honour of the Club?"

His visitor half rose from his seat, then sank back into it again.

"No! You know I haven't! Don't talk of it! No!"

"I have no desire to talk of it. It is scarcely a question of talk. It is rather a question of do."

His hearer covered his face with his hands and shuddered. There was something in his host's eyes, as he smilingly regarded him, which suggested possibilities--and also limitations--of a distinctly curious sort. He kept his glance fixed on his companion, and, as he spoke again, he expelled through his nostrils the smoke of his cigarette.

"On the whole, perhaps, your policy of postponement may turn out fortunately for both of us. You will remember that under certain circ.u.mstances I reserved the right to nominate a candidate--a candidate, that is, for your attention. The circ.u.mstances which I thought might arise have arisen."

"Townsend!"

"Archie!"

Lord Archibald removed his hands from his face. The two men looked at each other--the one face ghastly, haggard, frightened; the other easy, careless, smiling.

"Do you mean it?"

Lord Archibald's voice was husky. Mr. Townsend flicked the ash from his cigarette.

"I am in the habit, in matters of moment, of meaning what I say, although that may not be the case with you."

The airily-suggested insinuation stung. The other burst into a sudden blaze of pa.s.sion.

"What do you mean by that?"

The host met his visitor's furious gaze with a smile which seemed to convey a fulness of meaning which was sufficient to subdue the other's wrath.

"What did you mean by asking me if I meant what I said? Didn't you know?"

Lord Archibald turned his face away. Taking up the tumbler of soda and whisky he drained it of its contents. Getting up from his chair, he went to the sideboard to replenish. While he was in the act of doing so, and his back towards his host, he asked a question.

"Who is it?"

"A woman."

Lord Archibald spun round like a teetotum, a decanter in one hand, a tumbler in the other.

"A woman? Reggie? You--you don't mean Miss Jardine?"

Mr. Townsend's lips curled. In some subtle way his countenance was transfigured. The ease and the carelessness vanished. He became all bitterness and gall.

"Beaupre, I am inclined to think that you are the most consummate a.s.s of my acquaintance. Why will you perpetually harp upon a single string?

You are so utterly inept that the wonder is I have borne with you so long. Might I ask you not eternally to play the fool?"

Lord Archibald put down the decanter and the gla.s.s. The muscles of his face quivered as if he was about to be afflicted by an attack of St.

Vitus' Dance.

"If anybody but you had spoken to me like that, at the very least he should never speak to me again."

The only effect which his visitor's fury had on Mr. Townsend was to make him still more scornful.

"Don't gas to me, my good fellow. Reserve that sort of thing for some other of your acquaintance. I regret that you should have rendered it necessary for me to remind you that you are under a considerable obligation to me, and I regret still more that you should have compelled me to ask if it is your intention to fulfil that obligation.