"How very interesting!" she purred, adding aloud so that the subject of her request could not fail to hear, "Why don't you introduce him, instead of keeping him standing there? We Americans are death on dukes, you know."
At a gesture from Forsyth, who tried to convey his disgust by a look, Beaumanoir limped forward, smiling. His misfortunes had made him something of a democrat, and he had always been ready to see the comic side of things till tragedy that morning had claimed him for its own. In meeting the advances of the agent Jevons in the Bowery saloon he had been largely influenced by the humor of the situation—of the scion of a ducal house consenting to "get a bit" by passing forged bonds.
Mrs. Talmage Eglinton, a handsome blonde with an elegant figure and a childish voice, received the Duke with effusion.
"I stopped my carriage to ask Mr. Forsyth to tea on Saturday," she prattled. "I do hope your Grace will come too. I am staying at the Cecil, and shall be delighted to see you."
The unblushing effrontery of the invitation failed to strike Beaumanoir in his sudden horror at the associations called up by it. This frivolous butterfly of a woman occupied the next suite of rooms to those in which Ziegler was spinning his villainous web—in which that terrible old man had unfolded to him the details of his treacherous task. Strange, too, that he should be bidden to the mild dissipation of an afternoon tea-table in that hotel, of all others, on the very day when he was due to go there on business so different, for Saturday was the day appointed by Ziegler for his call for "further instructions."
Conscious that the mocking eyes of the lady in the landau were watching him with a curious inquiry, he mastered his emotion, and at the same time came to a decision on the vital issue before him. Probably he would have arrived at the same one without the incentive of avoiding an unpalatable engagement, but Mrs. Talmage Eglinton's invitation to tea was undoubtedly the final influence in setting him on the straight path.
"I am very sorry," he replied, and there was a new dignity in his tone, "but I must ask you to excuse me. I am going down to-morrow to Prior's Tarrant, my place in Hertfordshire, and I shall not be in town on Saturday."
For the fraction of a second the rebuffed hostess seemed taken aback by the refusal. She flushed slightly under her powder, and the taper fingers twitched on the handle of her sunshade. But without any appreciable pause she answered gaily:
"That's most unkind of you. Well, what must be must be. Good-bye, your Grace. Good-bye, Mr. Forsyth; I shall expect you, anyhow. Drive on, Bennett."
The carriage rolled away.