"Still unconvinced!" says Horace, with an airy laugh. "I know I ought to take you by the shoulders, Dorian, and pitch you down the stairs; but, somehow, I haven't the pluck to-night. I am overdone through this abominable law, and—you are such a tremendous fellow when compared with me. Must you really be off so soon? Stay and have a cup of coffee? No? Well, if it must be, good-night."
Dorian goes down the stairs,—puzzled, bewildered, almost convinced. At the foot of the staircase he looks up again, to see Horace standing above him still, candle in hand, radiant, smiling, débonnaire, apparently without a care in the world.
He nods to him, and Dorian, returning the salute in grave and silent fashion, goes out into the lighted streets, and walks along in momentary expectation of a hansom, when a well known voice smites upon his ear:
"What in the name of wonder, Branscombe, brings you here?"
Turning, he finds himself face to face with Sir James Scrope.
"My presence is hardly an eighth wonder," he says, wearily. "But how is it you are not in Paris?"
"Fate ordained it so, and probably fortune, as I just want a friend with whom to put in an evening."
"You have chosen a dull companion," says Dorian, stupidly. "What brought you home so soon? or, rather, what took you to Paris originally?"
"Business partly, and partly because—er—that is, I felt I needed a little change."
"Ah! just so," says Branscombe. But he answers as one might who has heard nothing. Sir James casts upon him a quick penetrating glance.