I had only time to catch at the name and weave Cecilia and her sister into this romance with one throw of the shuttle, when there came a knock at the door.
'Come in,' I said. The door opened, and a man entered. Seeing my patron and myself, he drew back.
'I have made a mistake,' he murmured awkwardly. 'I wish to find Miss Grammont. I was told she lived here.'
'Talk of the devil!' cried my patron. 'Charles Grammont!'
'That is my name,' said the new-comer, standing awkwardly in the doorway. 'You have the advantage of me, sir.'
'H'm!' said my patron, returning to the manner he had first worn in my presence. 'Likely to keep it too. Good-day, Calvotti. You'll remember that little commission. Things may perhaps be easier than I thought they would be.' He muttered this to himself so that the new-comer did not hear him. He pushed uncourteously past the young man and went out.
'You will find Miss Grammont upstairs, sir,' I said. 'If you are Mr. Charles Grammont, the brother of the ladies upstairs, I shall be glad to speak to you in an hour's time, on a matter of much advantage to you.'
The young man had a disagreeable swagger and a bloated face. His swagger was intended to hide the discomfiture in the midst of which that sort of man's soul lives always.
'If you have any thing to say to me,' he answered, still holding the handle of the door, 'you can say it now, or save yourself the trouble of saying it at all.'
'Sir,' I replied with some asperity, 'it is not a matter which concerns me at all, but you.