"The enchanted city," said Conway, catching back some flavour of those times. "It seemed distant as El Dorado, and as desirable."
Mallinson responded with the gentle smile with which a man recognises and pities a childishness he has himself outgrown.
Drake ordered port, having great faith in its qualities, as inducive of a cat-like content and consequent good-fellowship. Mallinson, however, never touched port; nothing but the lightest of French burgundies after dinner for him. The party withdrew to the smoking-room.
"By the way, Drake," asked Mallinson, "have you anything to do to-night?"
"No, why?"
"I was asked to take you to a sort of party."
Conway looked up sharply in surprise.
"You were asked to take me!" exclaimed Drake. "Who asked you?"
"Oh, n.o.body whom you know." He hesitated for a second, then added with studied carelessness, "A Miss Le Mesurier. Her mother"s dead," he explained, noticing the look of surprise on Drake"s face, "so she keeps house for her father. There"s an aunt to act as chaperon, but she doesn"t count. I got a note from Miss Le Mesurier just before I came here asking me to bring you."
"But what does she know of me?"
"Oh, I may have mentioned your name," he explained indifferently, and Conway smiled.
"Besides," said Conway, "the _Meteor_ has transformed you into a public character. One knows of your movements."
"What I don"t see is how Miss Le Mesurier could have known that you had landed yesterday," commented Mallinson.
"I was interviewed by the _Meteor_ on Plymouth Quay. You received the note, you say, this evening. She may have seen the interview."
Drake called to a waiter and ordered him to bring a copy of the paper.
Conway took it and glanced at the first page.
"Yes, here it is."
He read a few lines to himself, and burst into a laugh.
"Guess how it begins?"
"I know," said Drake.
"A sovereign you don"t."
Drake laid a sovereign on the table. Conway followed his example.
"It begins," said Drake, "with a Latin quotation, _O si sic omnes_!"
"It begins," corrected Conway, pocketing the money, "with very downright English"; and he read, "Drake, with the casual indifference of the hardened filibuster, readily accorded an interview to our representative on landing from the _Dunrobin Castle_ yesterday afternoon!"
Drake s.n.a.t.c.hed the paper out of Conway"s hand, and ran his eye down the column to see whether his words had been similarly trans.m.u.ted by the editorial alchemy. They were printed, however, as they had been spoken, but interspersed with comments. The editor had contented himself with stamping his own device upon the coin; he had not tried to change its metal. Drake tossed the paper on one side. "The man goes vitriol-throwing with vinegar," he said.
Conway picked up the _Meteor_.
"You are a captain, aren"t you?" he asked. "The omission of the t.i.tle presumes you a criminal."
"I don"t object to the omission," replied Drake. "I suppose the t.i.tle belongs to me by right. But, after all, a captain in Matanga! There are more honourable t.i.tles."
Mallinson looked at him suddenly, as though some fresh idea had shot into his brain.
"Well, will you come?" he asked carelessly.
"I hardly feel inclined to move."
"I didn"t imagine you would." There was evidence of distinct relief in the brisk tone of Mallinson"s voice. He turned to Conway, "We ought to be starting, I fancy."
"I shall stay with Drake," Conway answered, despondently to Drake"s thinking, and he lapsed into silence after Mallinson"s departure, broken by intervals of ineffective sarcasm concerning women, ineffectively accentuated by short jerks of laughter. He roused himself in a while and carried Drake off to his club, where he found Hugh Fielding pulling his moustache over the _Meteor_. He introduced Drake, and left them together.
"I was reading a list of your sins," said Fielding, and he waved the newspaper.
Drake laughed in reply.
"The vivisectionists," said Fielding, "may cite you as proof of the painlessness of their work."
"It is my character that suffers the knife. I fancy the editor would prefer to call the operation a _post-mortem_."
Fielding warmed to his new acquaintance. Whisky and pota.s.s helped them to discover common friends, about whom Fielding supplied information with a flavour of acid in his talk which commended him to Drake; it bit without malice. Mallinson"s name was mentioned.
"You have read his autobiography?" asked Fielding.
"No; but I have read his novel."
"That"s what I mean. Most men wait till they have achieved a career before they write their autobiographies. He antic.i.p.ates his. It"s rather characteristic of the man, I think."
They drove from the club together in a hansom. Opposite to his rooms in St. James"s Street Fielding got out.
"Good-night," he said, and took a step towards the door.
A lukewarm curiosity which had been stirring in Drake during the latter part of the evening prompted him to a question now that he saw the opportunity to satisfy it disappearing.
"You know the Le Mesuriers?" he asked.
Fielding laughed. "Already?" he said.
"I don"t understand."
"Then you are not acquainted with the lady?"
"No; that"s what I"m asking. What is Miss Le Mesurier like?"
"She is more delightfully surprising than even I had imagined. Otherwise she"s difficult to describe; a bald enumeration of features would be rank injustice."
Drake"s curiosity responded to the flick.