The hearty manner and the genial tone would have been enough for Harry at an earlier stage of his acquaintance with this man; but now instinctively he knew them for a cloak, and he would not relinquish the small boys' hands for the one which he felt was awaiting his, though his eyes had never fallen from Lowndes's spectacles.
"I am not sure that you would have been able to see me," was his reply. "I am on duty even now. What was the point?"
"Is it impossible for me to have a word with you alone?"
Harry told the little boys to walk on slowly to the pillar. "It will literally have to be a word," he added pointedly. Yet his curiosity was whetted. What could the man want with him here and now?
"Very well—very well," said Lowndes briskly. "I merely desire to apologise for my—my hastiness when we met on Saturday. I fear—that is, my daughter tells me—but indeed I am conscious myself—that I quite misunderstood your meaning, Ringrose, on a point in itself too trifling to be worth naming. You may remember, however, that you asked me if I knew anything about a person of whose very existence I had just exposed my ignorance?"
"I remember," said Harry. "A mere slip of the tongue, due to my curiosity about the man."
"And is your curiosity satisfied?" inquired Lowndes, becoming suddenly preoccupied in wiping the dust from his eye-glasses.
"Well, I haven't seen him yet, though he is in the house."
"Ah!" said Lowndes, as though he had not listened. "Well, Ringrose, all I wanted was to tell you frankly that I didn't mean to be rude to you on Saturday afternoon; so I took the train on here before going to the City; and now I've just time to catch one back—so good-bye."
"It was hardly worth while taking so much trouble," said Harry dryly; for he knew there was some other meaning in the move, though as yet he could not divine what.