"I see your carriage is at the door, and I will detain you but a very few moments. You can give me, say, ten minutes?"
Wilmot muttered that his time was at Captain Kilsyth's disposal; an avowal which apparently annoyed his visitor, for he said testily, "You, and I should be above exchanging the polite trash of society, Dr. Wilmot. I am come here to speak on a matter which concerns me deeply, and those very near and dear to me even more deeply still. Are you prepared to hear me?"
Those very near and dear to him! O yes; Wilmot was prepared to hear him fully and said as much. Would Captain Kilsyth be seated?
"I have come to talk to you, Dr. Wilmot, as a friend," commenced Ronald, dropping into a chair. "I daresay you are scarcely prepared for that avowal, considering my conduct at our interview yesterday in Brook-street. Then I was hasty and inconsiderate; and for my conduct then I beg to tender my apologies frankly and freely. I trust they will be received?" There was an odd square blunt honesty even in the manner in which he said this that prepossessed Wilmot.
"As frankly and freely as they are offered," he replied.
"So far agreed," said Ronald. "Now, look here. I am a very bad hand at beating about the bush; and I have come here to say things the mere fact of saying which is, where men of honour are not concerned, compromising to one of the person spoken of I have every belief that you are a man of honour, and therefore I speak."
Dr. Wilmot bowed again, and said that Captain Kilsyth complimented him.
"No. I think too highly of you to do that. I simply speak what I believe to be true, from all I have heard of your doings at Kilsyth."
Of his doings at Kilsyth? A man of honour, from his doings at Kilsyth? Though perfectly conscious that Ronald was watching him, narrowly, Chudleigh Wilmot's cheeks coloured deeply at this point, and he was silent.
"Now, Dr. Wilmot, I must begin by talking to you a little about myself--an unprofitable subject, but one necessary to be touched upon in this discourse between us. The men who are supposed to know me intimately--my own brother officers, I mean--will tell you that I am an oddity, an extraordinary fellow, and that they know nothing about me. Nothing is known of my likes or dislikes. I am believed not to have any of either. Now this is an exaggerated view of the question. I don't know that I dislike anyone in particular; but I have my affections. I am very fond of my father; I adore my sister Madeleine."