“Madame,” I say, with a bow, “I am an unfortunate stranger, come to pay my respects to Mr. Fisher and his beautiful lady. I wish you could explain my reception.”
“What is your name?” says Mrs. Fisher, with comparative graciousness, considering that she is a bourgeois Englishwoman taken by surprise, and fearing both to be cold to a possible man of position and to be friendly with a possible nobody.
A name I must have, and I must also invent it at once, and it must be something both Scotch and Italian. I take the first two that come into my head.
“Dugald Cellarini,” I reply.
They look at one another dubiously. I must put them at their ease at any cost.
“A fine picture,” I say, indicating the portrait of my host, “and an excellent likeness. Do you not think so, Mrs. Fisher?”
She looks at me as if she had a new thought.
“Are you a friend of the artist?” she asks.
“An intimate,” I reply with alacrity.
“We have informed Mr. Benzine that we specially desired him not to bring any more of his Bohemian acquaintances to our house,” says the amiable lady.