"Oh, Uncle Van? Yes, we consider him our----"
"Leading article? Quite so. I"ve heard a bit about you too--something about a canoe, eh?"
Charlie looked somewhat disturbed.
"Oughtn"t Sutton to have told me? Well, it"s too late now because I"ve told half a dozen fellows."
"But there"s nothing to tell."
"Well, I told it to old Thrapston--you don"t know him, do you?
Cunningest old boy in London. Upon my honor, you know, I shouldn"t like to be like old Thrapston, not when I was getting old, you know. He"s too----"
"Well, what did he say?" asked Victor.
"He said what you never had the sense to see, my boy; but I expect Mr.
Merceron won"t be obliged to me for repeating it."
"I should like to hear it," said Charlie, with necessary politeness.
"Well, it"s not me, its old Thrapston; and if you say it"s wrong, I"ll believe yon. Old Thrapston--hang it, Victor, that old man ought to be hanged! Why, only the other day I saw him----"
"Do stick to the point," groaned Victor.
"All right. Well, he said, "I"ll lay a guinea there was a"--and he winked his sinful old eye, you know, for all the world like a what-d"ye-call-it in a cathedral one of those hideous--I say, what is the word, Victor? I saw "em when Agatha took me--beg pardon, Merceron?"
Was the world full of Agathas? If so, it would be well not to start whenever one was mentioned. Charlie recovered himself.
"I think you must mean a gargoyle," he said, wondering who this Agatha might be.
"Of course I do. Fancy forgetting that! Gargoyle, of course. Well, old Thrapston said, "I"ll lay a guinea there was a woman in that dashed summer house, Calder, my boy.""
Victor b.u.t.ton"s eyes lighted with a gleam,
"Well, I"m hanged if I ever thought of that! Charlie, you held us all!"
"Bosh!" said Charlie Merceron. "There was no one there."
"All right. But there ought to have been, you know--to give interest to the position."
"Honor bright, Charlie?" asked Victor Sutton.
"Shut up, Sutton," interposed Calder, "He"s not in the Divorce Court, Let"s change the subject."
Charlie was in a difficulty, but the better course seemed to be to allow the subject to be changed, in spite of the wink that accompanied Calder"s suggestion.
"All right," said Victor. "How is Miss Glyn, Wentworth?"
"Oh, she"s all right. She"s been in the country for a bit, but she"s back now."
"And when is the happy event to be?"
Calder laid down his knife and fork and remarked deliberately:
"I haven"t, my dear boy, the least idea."
"I should hurry her up," laughed Sutton.
"I"d just like--now I should just like to put you in my shoes for half an hour, and see you hurry up Agatha."
"She couldn"t eat me."
"Eat you? No, but she"d flatten you out so that you"d go under that door and leave room for the jolly draught there is all the same."
Sutton laughed complacently.
"Well, you"re a patient man," he observed. "For my part, I like a thing to be off or on."
It came to Charlie Merceron almost as a surprise to find that Victor"s impudence--he could call it by no other name--was not reserved for his juniors or for young men from the country; but Calder took it quite good-humoredly, contenting himself with observing, "Well, it was very soon off in your case, wasn"t it, old fellow?"
Sutton flushed.
"I"ve told you before that that"s not true," he said angrily.
Calder laughed.
"All right, all right. We used to think, once upon a time, Merceron, you know, that old Victor here was a bit smitten himself; but he hasn"t drugged my champagne yet, so of course, as he says, it was all a mistake."
After dinner the three separated. Victor had to go to a party. Calder Wentworth proposed to Charlie that they should take a stroll together with a view to seeing whether, when they came opposite to the door of a music-hall, they would "feel like" dropping in to see part of the entertainment. Charlie agreed, and, having lit their cigars, they set out. He found his now friend amusing, and Calder, for his part, took a liking for Charlie, largely on account of his good looks; like many plain people, he was extremely sensitive to the influence of beauty in women and men alike.
"I say, old fellow," he said, pressing Charlie"s arm as if he had known him all his life, "there was somebody in that summer-house, eh?"
Charlie turned with a smile and a blush. He felt confidential.
"Yes, there was, only Victor----"
"Oh, I know. I nearly break his head whenever he mentions any girl I like."
"You know what he"d have thought--and it wasn"t anything like that really."
"Who was she, then?"
"I--I don"t know."
"Oh, I don"t mean her name, of course. But what was she?"
"I don"t know."
"Where did she come from?"