Miss Altifiorla, he thought, was by no means an unpleasant young woman with whom to have an intrigue. She had good looks of her own, though they were thin and a little pinched. She was in truth thirty-five years old, but she did not quite look it. She had a certain brightness of eye when she was awakened to enthusiasm, and she knew how to make the best of herself. She could whisper and be—or pretend to be—secret. She had about her, at her command, a great air of special friendship. She had not practised it much with men as yet, but there was no reason why she should not do so with advantage. She felt herself already quite on intimate terms with Sir Francis; and of Sir Francis it may be said, that he was sufficiently charmed with Miss Altifiorla to find it expedient to go and see her off from the Waterloo Station.
He found Dick Ross at his club and lunched with him. "You're just up from the Criterion," said Dick.
"Yes; I went down for the sake of renewing an old acquaintance, and I renewed it."
"You've been persecuting that unfortunate young woman."
"Why a young woman should be thought unfortunate because she marries such a pink of perfection as Mr. Western, and avoids such a scapegrace as I am, I cannot conceive."
"She's unfortunate because you mean to bully her. Why can't you leave her alone? She has had her chance of war, and you have had yours, and he has had his. As far as I can see you have had the best of it. She is married to a stiff prig of a fellow, who no doubt will make her miserable. Surely that ought to be enough for you."
"Not quite," said Sir Francis. "There is nothing recommends itself to my mind so much as even-handed justice. He played me a trick once, and I'll play him another. She too played me a trick, and now I can play her one. My good fortune consists in this, that I can kill the two birds with one stone."
"You mean to kill them?"
"Certainly I do. Why on earth should I let them off? He did not let me off. Nor did she. They think because I carry things in an easy manner that I take them easily. I suffer as much as they do. But they shall suffer as well as I."
"The most pernicious doctrine I ever heard in my life," said Dick Ross as he filled his mouth with cold chicken pie.