Bude changed colour.
‘Are you?’
‘No,’ interrupted Merton. ‘But she is not free.’
‘There is somebody in America? Nobody here, I think.’
‘It is hardly that,’ said Merton. ‘Can you listen to rather a long story? I’ll cut it as much as possible. You must remember that I am practically breaking my word of honour in telling you this. My honour is in your hands.’
‘Fire away,’ said Bude, pouring a bottle of Apollinaris water into a long tumbler, and drinking deep.
Merton told the tale of Miss McCabe’s extraordinary involvement, and of the wild conditions on which her hand was to be won. ‘And as to her heart, I think,’ he added, ‘if you pull off the prize—
If my heart by signs can tell,
Lordling, I have marked her daily,
And I think she loves thee well.’
‘Thank you for that, old cock,’ replied the peer, shaking Merton’s hand. He had recovered from his emotion.
‘I’m on,’ he added, after a moment’s silence, ‘but I shall enter as Jones Harvey.’