"Then it is quite possible that we met there, Mr. Mallow, although I cannot recall having seen you. This is the first time I have visited England. Forgive me if I am somewhat lax in the observance of your social customs--one always shakes hands here, I believe, when presented; you must let me then give you my left hand."
"Is your right disabled?" asked Mallow, shaking the hand this affable young man extended.
"I am sorry to say it is, Mr. Mallow. I hurt it some months back, shooting in India; the bones are diseased, and, since my arrival, I have been having it attended to by one of your clever London surgeons. I am relieved to say that he did not consider amputation to be necessary."
Here, again, was another circumstance which immediately struck Mallow as peculiar. The right hand of the dead man in Athelstane Place had been cutoff; the right hand of Mr. Carson was diseased, and had narrowly escaped amputation. This was a strange coincidence.
"I am charmed with your country, Mr. Mallow," continued Carson, who seemed bent upon making himself agreeable. "After the arid plains of India, these green fields are very refreshing to the eye."
"Yet I have seen marvellous verdure in the Himalayas," replied Mallow.
Carson shrugged his shoulders. "Oh yes; every land has its season of greenness, you know, but India is undeniably dry."
"How do you do, Mr. Mallow," said a voice at the young man's elbow, and he turned to see the lean form of Miss Slarge. "We have quite a large gathering to-day, have we not?--Major Semberry, Dr. Drabble, and Mr. Carson."
"Last and least," smiled that gentleman.
Mallow laughed also, seemingly out of politeness, and glanced round the drawing-room at the people referred to by Miss Slarge. Major Semberry, a fair, handsome, soldierly man, was paying great attention to Miss Ostergaard, who had apparently forgotten Aldean in the ardour of her present flirtation; and Dr. Drabble, tall and thin as a telegraph-pole, and with about as much figure, was talking loudly with Olive Bellairs. When Laurence withdrew his eyes, Miss Slarge, who was quite modern at the present moment, was chatting with Carson in her high-pitched voice.