"Yes!" I looked at the fellow approvingly. He was a much stouter man and perhaps an inch taller than I, and he had large feet. He was attired in the hotel uniform. He wore a dragoon's moustache, and he looked like an old soldier. "I wish you to be good enough to show my dear friend, Sir Charles Venner, to the street." I turned to Sir Charles and immediately perceived that my adversary had become my victim.
"When and where shall we meet again?" he muttered hoarsely.
"Ten?" said I. He was grey, grey to his lips. His eyes shone like stars.
"Yes, ten!" he replied.
"I'll drop you a line!" I said with a smile. "But how careless of me, I almost forget my hospital subscription list. How much may I put you down for? You know the cause is a deserving one. Shall we say two hundred pounds?"
"Oh, I suppose so," he said.
"Cash, old chap? Or will you send me a cheque?" I frowned as our eyes met, and he read my meaning.
"I brought the money with me," he replied. "I may as well hand it over to you now. I shall thereby save a postage stamp!" He threw a bundle of notes upon the table.
I smiled again and looking steadily into his eyes held out one hand. "Well, good night to you, old boy—sleep well—and be good till we meet again!"
I fancy Sir Charles Venner had never been submitted to a more intolerable piece of degradation. To be commanded to shake hands with one's blackmailer! His eyes were simply murderous, but he obeyed. It was only a form of course, for our fingers barely touched, but his involuntary shiver of repulsion was communicated to my frame even in that swift contact, and I had enough fine feeling in me to appreciate his passionate disgust. To be candid, I liked him all the better because of it, for although there is not a spark of pride in my composition, a constitutional weakness obliges me to respect pride in other people.