Greenacre's first repetition of the name was mechanical, the next sounded a note of confused surprise, the third broke short in a very singular way, just as if his eyes had suddenly fallen on something which startled him into silence. Yet no one had entered the room, no face had appeared at the door.
"What's up?" asked Gammon.
The other regained his self-possession, as though he had for a moment wandered mentally from the subject they were discussing.
"Forgive me. What name did you say? Yes, yes, Clover. Odd name. Tell me something about him. Where did you know him? What was he?"
Having gone so far, Gammon saw no reason for refusing the details of the story. With the pleasure that every man feels in narrating circumstances known only to a few, he told all he could about the career of Mrs. Clover's husband. Greenacre listened with a placidly smiling attention.
"Just the kind of thing I am always coming across," he remarked. "Everyday story in London. We must find this man. Do you know his Christian name?"
Mrs. Clover called him Mark.
"Mark? May or may not be his own, of course. And now, if you permit the question, who saw this man and recognized him in the theatre?"
Gammon gave a laugh. Then, fearing that he might convey a wrong impression, he answered seriously that it was a niece of Mrs. Clover, a young lady with whom he was on friendly terms, nothing whatever but friendly terms; a most respectable young lady—anxious, naturally, to bring Mrs. Clover and her husband together again, but discreet enough to have kept the matter quiet as yet. And he explained how it came about that this young lady knew only the address in Stanhope Gardens.
After reflecting upon that, Greenacre urged that it would be just as well not to take the young lady into their counsel for the present, to which his friend readily assented. And so, when they had chatted a little longer, the man of mystery rose "to keep an appointment." Gammon should hear from him in a day or two.