“Why, Sydney.”
“Kindly leave her name alone: we’re not talking of her.”
“Aren’t we? You’re a bit out, old chap. What I have to say does concern her, as it happens. What do you say to this, Quin? I’ll give my word not to squeeze you further, and, what’s more, I’ll burn a certain letter that we know of here—before your eyes—if you’ll swear to make a match between that little girl and me. You won’t have opposition to contend with, I imagine. She’s too much of a child to have any violent fancies elsewhere, especially since you and Lady Frederica between you choked off the chemist’s assistant. I’d have made running with a bit myself this last fortnight, only she’s always about in cottages and accompanied by the governess. The combination is a little too much for me to swallow, specially when the cottages are yours, my dear chap. So I’ll leave you to do the courting for me, since she evidently looks on you in loco parentis. Eh, if she knew a little more about you she wouldn’t be so keen to pin her faith upon you, would she?”
“Have you any more to say?” enquired St. Quentin.
“No—I think that’s about all. You won’t be altogether sorry to save your timber, eh, Quin?”
“Not on your terms, thank you, Bridge.”
“Eh, what? Oh! you don’t believe I have the letter; there it is.”
He pulled out two or three envelopes from a pocket-book. “That’s it,” he said, “inside that thumbed grey envelope; the other is the letter that you wrote me before settling to pay up—talking a lot of high faluting about expecting me to believe your innocence for the sake of auld lang syne, etc., as if I should be such a fool!”
“Destroy that letter, anyhow,” St. Quentin said, his thin hands clenching. “It’s a bit of a mockery to keep it now. I still believed in you more or less when I wrote it, you see.”
Sir Algernon laughed easily. “You were always a bit of a fool, Quin, from Eton days onwards. As you say, I may as well get rid of this precious production of yours. There’s not much sentiment left nowadays about our intercourse with one another, is there? and I’ve nearly muddled it with the jockey’s before now. Here goes!—Stop, let me just make sure I’ve got the right one; yes, that’s it, the cream-coloured envelope with ‘Re Quin’ on the back. Aren’t I a model man of business, eh? There goes your letter to me into the flames, old chap, and yours to Duncombe back into my pocket-book until you choose to have it follow suit!”