‘I mean, of course, from my standpoint,’ said Mr. Robertson hastily. ‘He ran away with a very beautiful girl who was on the very eve of contracting a most advantageous marriage from a worldly point of view, and the affair was much talked about. There was a great rush on Damerel’s books during the next few weeks—it is wonderful how a little sensation like that helps the sale of a book. I remember that Lord Pintleford published a novel with me some years ago which we could not sell at all. He shot his coachman in a fit of anger—that sold the book like hot cakes.’
‘I trust the unfortunate coachman was not seriously injured,’ said Saxonstowe, who was much amused by these revelations. ‘It is, I confess, an unusual method of advertising a book, and one which I should not care to adopt.’
‘Oh, we can spare your lordship the trouble!’ said Mr. Robertson. ‘There’ll be no need to employ any unusual methods in making your lordship’s book known. I have already subscribed two large editions of it.’
With this gratifying announcement Mr. Robertson plunged into the business which had brought Lord Saxonstowe to his office, and for that time no more was said of Lucian Damerel and his great fame. But that night Saxonstowe dined with his aunt, Lady Firmanence, a childless widow who lived on past scandals and present gossip, and chancing to remark that he had encountered Lucian and renewed a very small acquaintance with him, was greeted with a sniff which plainly indicated that Lady Firmanence had something to say.
‘And where, pray, did you meet Lucian Damerel at any time?’ she inquired. ‘He was unknown, or just beginning to be known, when you left England.’
‘It is ten years since I met him,’ answered Saxonstowe. ‘It was when I was staying at Saxonstowe with my uncle. I met Damerel at Simonstower, and the circumstances were rather amusing.’
He gave an account of the duel, which afforded Lady Firmanence much amusement, and he showed her the scar on his hand, and laughed as he related the story of Lucian’s terrible earnestness.
‘But I have never forgotten,’ he concluded, ‘how readily and sincerely he asked my forgiveness when he found that he had been in the wrong—it rather knocked me over, you know, because I didn’t quite understand that he really felt the thing—we were both such boys, and the girl was a child.’
‘Oh, Lucian Damerel has good feeling,’ said Lady Firmanence. ‘You wouldn’t understand the Italian strain in him. But it is amusing that you should have fought over Haidee Brinklow, who is now Mrs. Lucian. I’m glad he married her, and that you didn’t.’
‘Considering that I am to dine with Mr. and Mrs. Lucian Damerel to-morrow,’ said Saxonstowe, ‘it is a bit odd that I don’t know any more of them than this. She, I remember, was some connection of Lord Simonstower’s; but who is he?’