"A dangerous man, my lad. Beware of him."
"He gives me the creeps," said the Captain. "But let's talk of something else pleasanter."
We talked of Miss Ottley, or rather he did, while I listened, till midnight. Then he strolled with me to Bruton Street and we parted at Dixon Hubbard's doorstep as the clocks were striking one.
I found Hubbard seated before the fire, smoking, and staring dreamily up at a portrait of his wife that rested on the mantel.
"I've found out why I married her, Pinsent," he said slowly. "It was to benefit a Jew named Maurice Levi—the most awful bounder in London. She had been borrowing from him at twenty-five per cent. to pay some of her brother's gambling debts. Levi wanted to marry her, and would have, too, if I had not stepped in to save him. She is the dearest little woman in the world. She shed some tears. They cost me about a thousand pounds apiece."
"Good-night, Dixon," I said gently.
"Tears, idle tears," he murmured. "The poet, mark you, did not speak of woman's tears." Then he closed his eyes and heaved a deep sigh. "You find me changed, Pinsent?"
"A little."
"For better or worse? Be frank with me."