“All right,” the Captain added; and the three took their way together in the direction of Curzon Street. They walked for a few moments in silence, though the Captain whistled, and then Millicent suddenly turned to Hyacinth—
“You haven’t told me where you were going, yet.”
“We met in that public-house,” the Captain said, “and we were each so ashamed of being found in such a place by the other that we tumbled out together, without much thinking what we should do with ourselves.”
“When he’s out with me he pretends he can’t abide them houses,” Miss Henning declared. “I wish I had looked in that one, to see who was there.”
“Well, she’s rather nice,” the Captain went on. “She told me her name was Georgiana.”
“I went to get a piece of money changed,” Hyacinth said, with a sense that there was a certain dishonesty in the air; glad that he, at least, could afford to speak the truth.
“To get your grandmother’s nightcap changed! I recommend you to keep your money together—you’ve none too much of it!” Millicent exclaimed.
“Is that the reason you are playing me false?” Hyacinth flashed out. He had been thinking, with still intentness, as they walked; at once nursing and wrestling with a kindled suspicion. He was pale with the idea that he was being bamboozled; yet he was able to say to himself that one must allow, in life, for the element of coincidence, and that he might easily put himself immensely in the wrong by making a groundless charge. It was only later that he pieced his impressions together, and saw them—as it appeared—justify each other; at present, as soon as he had uttered it, he was almost ashamed of his quick retort to Millicent’s taunt. He ought at least to have waited to see what Curzon Street would bring forth.
The girl broke out upon him immediately, repeating “False, false?” with high derision, and wanting to know whether that was the way to knock a lady about in public. She had stopped short on the edge of a crossing, and she went on, with a voice so uplifted that he was glad they were in a street that was rather empty at such an hour: “You’re a pretty one to talk about falsity, when a woman has only to leer at you out of an opera-box!”
“Don’t say anything about her,” the young man interposed, trembling.