"You mean to return to the Cabaret de la Liberte!" exclaimed Sir Andrew.
"Why not?"
"You will be recognised!"
"Not before I have been of service to a good many unfortunates, I hope."
"But that awful cough of yours! Percy, you'll do yourself an injury with it one day."
"Not I! I like that cough. I practised it for a long time before I did it to perfection. Such a splendid wheeze! I must teach Tony to do it some day. Would you like to hear it now?"
He laughed, that perfect, delightful, lazy laugh of his, which carried every hearer with it along the path of light-hearted merriment. Then he broke into the awful cough of the consumptive Rateau. And Esther Vincent instinctively closed her eyes and shuddered.