'I have often heard of the Musée Plantin, with its quaint old rococo furniture and antique pictures—the old-world air of the place—its stillness and gloomy seclusion,' said Alison.
'It is doocid slow. Still I should like to have the pleasure of showing it to you,' said he again, stooping over her chair, but seeking even then to throw her off her guard. 'The place itself is rather dark and gloomy with its high wainscots, oak carvings, ebony and ivory cabinets, faded tapestries, casement windows, and all the rest of it—said to be haunted by the ghosts of the funny old printers who lived there and printed the first Bible with old types which are yet there, and which it is said they come once a year at midnight to set up again, for the creak of the ancient presses is heard. But, be all that as it may, I don't know a more stunning place for a steady spoon or flirtation than the solemn old quadrangular Musée Plantin, with its suites of antique rooms, furnished with cushioned lounges, heavy curtains, and beds like tombs—like plumed hearses, or the old state-beds in Hampton Court—beds in which the dead Plantins slept three hundred years ago. By Jove, you must let me show you all that to-morrow. But as that duffer, old Cadbury, is so doocid long, had we not better have supper without him? Shall I order the waiter to serve it up?' he added, laying his hand upon the bell rope, as if her assent would follow of course.
'Oh, no—no,' exclaimed Alison, starting from her seat now in positive alarm at the idea of supping alone with a man whose name was unknown to her, and in whose watery, wicked eyes she was convinced there was an expression now there could be no mistaking.
'A glass of wine, then,' he urged, suavely.
'You must excuse me.'
'How shy you are! I can never imagine why any woman who is young and handsome need be shy.'
'You know Lord Cadbury, of course,' said Alison, suddenly.
'Intimately.'
'May I ask your name?'
'Captain Smith,' he replied, without a moment's hesitation. 'The world says queer things of old Cadbury.'