It was the collapse of my life. I will own to it fairly, and save my credit at least for a sense of humour. To think that all this time I had been building such a structure on such a foundation! I was bitterly mortified, bitterly humbled; but I trust that I did the gentlemanly thing in at once accepting Sir Calvin’s advice. I went straight up to the Baron and apologized.
“It seems I’ve been making a fool of myself,” I said.
“And I know how that must distress you,” he answered heartily. “Think no more about it. Your motive has been all through an excellent one—to help your friend at somebody else’s expense; and if I’ve failed you at a pinch, it’s not for want of a real good try on your part. And as to my underhand ways——”
“O, they necessarily disappear with the rest,” I interrupted him. “When one’s moon-stricken one sees a bogey in every bush.”
“Well, well,” said Sir Calvin impatiently. “That’s enough said. We hadn’t quite done our talk when you came in, Bickerdike. Shut the door when you go out, there’s a good fellow.”
The hint was plain to starkness. I slunk away, feeling my tail between my legs. In the hall, to add to my discomfiture, I came upon Audrey. Her face fell on seeing me.
“O, have you come back?” she said in a discharmed voice, fairly paying me with my own bad coin.
“Yes,” I said: “and now I have, everybody seems to love me.”
She looked at me queerly.
“The Baron has returned too: isn’t that delightful?” She laughed and moved away, then came again, on a mischievous thought: “O, by the by! There was another thing I might have told you about him the other day. All the half-crowns he wins at chess he puts into a benevolent fund for poor chess-players. He says a half-crown on a game is like a Benedictine—neither too much nor too little. It is just enough to bring out the brilliancy in a player without intoxicating him.”