Dressed as he was, it was with some difficulty that Charley secured a place where he could, unobserved, watch the movements of the party. Max’s quiet gentlemanly attentions were directed to both alike, the passing of the book of the words, the seeking places, and lastly the replacing of the opera-cloak upon Ella’s gracefully rounded shoulders.
They passed close to him where he stood muffled up and with flashing eyes, Ella’s cloak brushing his coat on the way to the brougham; and then they were driven off.
He wrote again after a sleepless night, telling of what he had seen, and imploring Ella to send him if but a line to assure him that his suspicions were false. “I have fought against them till it seems to me that it would require more than human strength,” he said naïvely, “while now I feel almost driven to believe.”
The same result: the letter returned unopened, and redirected in a hand that he was certain was Max Bray’s.
Furious now with rage, he took a cab and drove to Max’s lodgings in Bury-street, Saint James’s, to arrive in time to see two ladies descend the steps—one of whom was Ella—Max handing them into a waiting brougham, and kissing his hand as they were driven off.
“Ah, Charley Vining, how do?” he exclaimed, smiling pleasantly as he encountered the fierce angry face at his side. “Bai Jove, what a stranger you are! Haven’t set eyes on you for months.”
“I want a few words with you, Max,” said Charley harshly.
“Many as you like. Bai Jove, I don’t care how much any one talks to me, so long as they don’t want me to talk to them! Come upstairs.”
Charley followed him into his sybaritish bachelor rooms, where Max threw himself on a couch.
“Cigar or pipe, Vining—which will you have? I’ve some capital Saint Julien, and a decent bottle or two of hock. Which shall it be? Bai Jove, man, what’s the matter? Anything upset you?”