“Yes.”
“I always make love to Miss Cahere—she likes it best.”
Cartoner stared straight in front of him, and made no comment. The Frenchman gave a laugh, which was not entirely pleasant. It was rare that his laugh was harsh, but such a note rang in it now. They did not speak again until they had walked some distance northward of Piccadilly, and stopped before a house with white window-boxes. Several carriages stood at the other side of the road against the square railings.
“Is it her day?” inquired Deulin.
“Yes.”
Deulin made a grimace expressive of annoyance.
“And we shall see a number of people we had better not see. But, since we are here, let us go in—with a smile on the countenance, eh? my brave Cartoner.”
“And a lie on the tongue.”
“There I will meet you, too,” replied Deulin, looking into his card-case.
They entered the house, and, as Deulin had predicted, there found a number of people assembled, who noted, no doubt, that they had come together. It was observable that this was not a congregation of fashionable or artistic people; for the women were dressed quietly, and the men were mostly old and white-haired. It was also dimly perceptible that there was a larger proportion of brain in the room than is allotted to the merely fashionable, or to that shallow mixture of the dramatic and pictorial, which is usually designated the artistic world. Moreover, scraps of conversation reached the ear that led the hearer to conclude that the house was in its way a miniature Babel.