However, my annoyance could restrain him no better than my persuasion. He laughed openly, and then suddenly cast off the veil. With a curl at his lips, and an unmistakable impudence in his eyes, says he:
"I think the time is come, sir, when we might with profit understand one another a little better. Might we not deal a little more frankly with one another, do you not think? For instance, if you are prepared to confess that you have been beset by no highwayman whatever, and the whole invention of him, the coach, the valuables, the servants, and the horses is a cock-and-bull story intended to divert the attention of our honest host from your destitute condition, I am just as prepared to accept that statement."
"Sir," says I, "I fear that you forget yourself. You insult me wantonly."
However difficult it may be to condone the truth when it is so unblushingly expressed, I was hardly in a position to punish him for the publication of it. Not that it was any sneaking respect for the truth that restrained me. It was rather that I had arrived at years of a certain discretion. Was there not everything in the world to lose and nothing whatever to gain by indulging in open passages with a total stranger? Cynthia was at my side, and wholly dependent upon me. And it was her presence and that thought which enabled me to keep so tight a rein on my furious inclination. Meanwhile this person had turned such a cool impudent scrutiny upon me that it seemed as though he calmly spelt out every phase of thought through which I was at that moment passing.
CHAPTER XVII
WE MAKE ACQUAINTANCE WITH A PERSON OF DISTINCTION
I was by now worked up to a pretty rage. The stranger regarded it, however, with perfect calmness, not to say enjoyment.
"In your own particular branch of the profession, sir," says he, laughing, "I am the first to admit that you do remarkably well. A good carriage, a refined appearance, an excellent address, and a quite singular degree of assurance, there is but little wanting to your success. The lady, your fair companion, is wholly admirable. She hath the very look and air of a gentlewoman. She is vastly engaging too, and hath some sweet looks of her own; and I am prepared to say that she would reassure the most suspicious of landlords and the most incredulous of travellers."
"I protest, sir," says I, "that I do not follow you in the least."
"I think between friends, sir," says the other, "you might reasonably drop the high tone. I am not at all imposed on by it. Besides, where is the need? Believe me, I am the last man in the world to betray a brother in the pursuit of his calling. I have some few gifts myself, and my name for some years past hath been considered an ornament to the profession; but whatever my vanity, I am ever foremost in recognizing true merit in others. I have never had the pleasure of meeting you before, sir, but the very real talent you have already evinced will make William Sadler proud to be numbered among your friends."