"Won't you write yourself to Brian?" faltered Hugo, as if he hardly dared to make the suggestion.
"No, I think not. You will tell him my decision."
"I'm afraid I have been a bad ambassador," said Hugo, with an air of boyish simplicity, "and that I have offended you."
"Not at all." Dino held out his hand. "You have spoken very wisely, I think. Do not let me lose your esteem if I claim what I believe to be my rights."
Hugo sighed. "I suppose we ought to be enemies—I don't know," he said. "I don't like making enemies—won't you come and dine with me to-night, just to show that you do not bear me any malice. I have rooms in town; we can be there in a few minutes. Come back with me and have dinner."
Dino tried to evade the invitation. He would much rather have been alone; but Hugo would take no denial. The two went out together without summoning the landlady: Hugo took his companion by the arm, and walked for a little way down the street, then summoned a hansom from the door of a public-house, and gave an address which Dino did not hear. They drove for some distance. Dino thought that his new friend's lodgings were situated in a rather obscure quarter of London; but he made no remark in words, for he knew his own ignorance of the world, and he had never been in England before. Hugo's lodgings appeared to be on the second-floor of a gloomy-looking house, of which the ground-floor was occupied by a public bar and refreshment-room. The waiters were German or French, and the cookery was distinctly foreign in flavour. There was a touch of garlic in every dish, which Dino found acceptable, and which was not without its charm for Hugo Luttrell.
Dessert was placed upon the table, and with it a flask of some old Italian wine, which looked to Dino as if it had come straight from the cellars of the monastery at San Stefano. "It is our wine," he said, with a smile. "It looks like an old friend."
"I thought that you would appreciate it," said Hugo, with a laugh, as he rose and poured the red wine carelessly into Dino's glass. "It is too rough for me; but I was sure that you would like it."
He poured out some for himself and raised the glass, but he scarcely touched it with his lips. His eyes were fixed upon his guest.
Dino smiled, praised his host's thoughtfulness, and swallowed a mouthful or two of the wine; then set down his glass.