“Now what’s to be done? Shall I tell the Colonel? No. Wouldn’t do. The matter must go on. He’ll be cooler when they meet, and it will only mean a wing or a leg. That’s all.”
He went jauntily down to the parade, and exchanged pinches of snuff with old Lord Carboro’, who looked after him and muttered, “Fashionable fool! I wonder how much he owes Barclay. I must see. Clode tells me things are going too far, and I’m not going to have some one’s fair fame smirched through that idiot. A few months in a debtor’s prison would do him good.”
In happy ignorance of the remarks made behind his back, Sir Harry Payne went on to the house on the Parade, and Lord Carboro’ trotted off, snuff-box in hand, slightly uneasy in mind, but at rest compared to what he would have been had he known of the encounter that had taken place, and of Sir Harry Payne’s mission.
Richard Linnell had not returned, so Sir Harry bethought himself of Colonel Mellersh, found him at home, began chatting with him concerning cards, and the company staying in the place, firmly resolved not to give the Colonel a hint about his mission—and in ten minutes he had told him all.
“Tut—tut—tut!” ejaculated the Colonel. “I’m very sorry. About Claire Denville, you say?”
“Egad, Mellersh, what a fellow you are! You pump a man dry. Well, yes. Rockley’s dead on her. You remember the serenade?”
“Ah, yes; that horrible night!”
“Well, he’s a close fellow, as a rule, about his amours, but he raves about that girl.”
“Had she gone to meet him?”
“I don’t know; suppose so. Then the other lover comes; and it’s tom-cats.”