Captain Huston received the widow's note at his club. It was only eleven o'clock, and, consequently, there was plenty of time before he need put in an appearance at Suffolk Mansions. He was an idle man, and, like all idle men, fond of lounging about the streets gazing abstractedly into shops, and getting generally into the way of such foot-passengers as might have an object in their walk.
There is no haven for loungers in London except Piccadilly in the morning, and to this spot the soldier turned his steps. After inspecting the wares of a sporting tailor, he was preparing to cross the road with a view of directing his course down St. James's Street, when someone touched him on the shoulder.
Huston turned with rather more alacrity than is usually displayed by a British gentleman with a clear conscience, and for some seconds gazed in a watery manner at a fair, insipid face, ornamented by a wondrous moustache. There was a peculiarity about this moustache worth mentioning. Although an essentially masculine adornment, it, in some subtle way, suggested effeminacy.
'Mr. ... eh ... Hicks,' murmured Huston vaguely, and without much interest.
Hicks forgave magnanimously this Philistine want of appreciation.
'Yes, Captain Huston. How are you?'
'I? ... Oh! I'm all right, thanks.'
There was a faint suggestion of movement about the soldier's left leg as if intimating a desire to continue on its way towards St. James's Street; but this was ignored by Hicks in his own inimitable way.
'I caught sight of you the other day,' he said graciously; 'and I also had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Huston at Mrs. Wylie's.'
'Oh yes,' vaguely.