'Ah! I have seen him since I came home, but I could not say where he is now.'
If Hicks had been a really observant man (such as he devoutly considered himself to be), he would have noticed that his companion raised a gloved finger to his cheek, and tenderly pressed a slight abrasion visible still just on the bone in front of the ear.
'He is generally to be heard of,' said the artist in that innocently-significant tone which may mean much or nothing, according to the acuteness or foreknowledge of the listener, '... he is generally to be heard of at Suffolk Mansions. That is to say, when Brenda is staying there.'
Captain Huston's dull eyes were for a moment actually endowed with life. He stroked his drooping moustache, which was apparently placed there by a merciful Providence for purposes of justifiable concealment, and his moral attitude became visibly milder. He had just begun to realize that his own private affairs might not, after all, be of paramount importance to the whole of society.
'Is there,' he asked with military nonchalance, 'supposed to be something between Trist and Brenda?'
Hicks laughed, and, before replying, waved his hand gracefully to a friend in the stock-jobbing line, who had previously crossed the road in order to be recognised by him in passing.
'Oh no,' he answered cheerfully; 'I did not mean that at all. Now that I think of it, however, you were quite justified in taking it thus. They have always been great friends—that was all I meant. Their mothers were related, I believe.'
Captain Huston looked slightly disappointed. He did not, however, display such eagerness to walk either faster or slower, or in some other direction, now.
'Trist,' he observed as he opened his cigar-case sociably, 'is a queer fellow. Have a cigar?'
'Oh, I never smoke, you know—never. No, thanks.'