To Arkwright this name, unfortunately, conveyed nothing.
"You don't know?" Brun was disappointed.
"Never heard of him."
"Fancy that. World of wonders; what have you been doing with your time? He is the Duchess's grandson, son of the beautiful, the wonderful Iris Beaminster, who eloped with Kit Breton thirty years ago. I believe the old Duchess pursued her relentlessly until the end. They were married only a few years and then Iris Breton committed suicide. Kit Breton beat her and was always drunk; an absolute rascal. There was one boy, and he wandered about Europe with his father until he was twenty or so. Then Kit Breton died, and the boy came home. Revenge on his grandmother was his one idea. He was taken up by her enemies, of whom she always had a goodly store, and they might have made something out of him, if he hadn't developed his father's habits and finally been mixed up in some gambling scandal, and forced to leave the country.
"You can imagine what all this was to the Beaminsters—the great immaculate Beaminsters—you can picture the Duchess.... He went and saw her once ... but that's another story. Well, abroad he went, and abroad he stayed—just now, coming out of the Gallery, I saw him——"
"You are sure?"
"Positive. There could be no mistake. He's just the same, a trifle tireder, a trifle lower down—but the same, oh yes."
It was when Brun was most excited that he was unmistakably the foreigner. Now little exclamations that escaped him revealed him. As a rule in England he was more English than the English.
They had left the square and were passing up Harley Street. The houses wore their accustomed air of profitable secrecy. The doors, the windows, the brass knockers, the white and chastened steps were so discreet that Sunday morning was the only time in the week when they were really comfortable and at home. In every muffled hall there was lying in wait a muffled man-servant, beyond every muffled man-servant there was a muffled waiting-room with muffled illustrated papers: only the tinkling, at long intervals, of some sharp little bell from some inner secrecy would pierce that horrible discretion. Upon both men that shining succession of little brass plates produced its solemnity.
Arkwright was nevertheless interested by Brun's discoveries. He was accompanied, as they talked, by that picture of the thin, dark girl moving restlessly her long, gloved hands. He could see now that look that she had flung at the picture.... Oh! she was interesting!