"Now," said Granger, when all the Beau's visitors were gone but he, "now get you to bed, and be ready betimes to-morrow. Also drink no more. Remember this must not fall through."
"I have drunk nothing--or scarce nothing," Beau Bufton replied. "Am I a fool that I should carouse away my chance of a fortune and an estate when it is in my grasp, when in nine hours--yes, nine hours! think of it, ye gods!--it will be mine."
Then, with his eyes on Granger, and with the point of his chin in his hand, he cried, "You are strangely sober to-night, too, Lewis. I have known the time when these," and he pointed to the half or three-quarter drained flasks of Tokay and champagne which stood about the table, "would have been too much for you to resist. When they would have been on the table, but without a drop in them, and you--well! you would have been beneath it."
"Do you taunt me with my infirmities!" exclaimed Granger. "Taunt me--your jackal, your tool--with being sober! Have I not also something to induce me to sobriety? Your marriage means much to me. Almost as much as it does to you." And he regarded the other with a strange fixity of gaze.
"Five thousand guineas?" said the Beau, interrogatively. "Humph!"
"Ay--it means--well! just so. Gad! you see everything. You are a monstrous clever man."
"So, so," said the Beau. "So, so. Anyway, I have brought my pigs to a good market. Eh?"
"You have. In solemn truth, you have. Now, good-night. I shall be with you to-morrow to breakfast early. To bed. To bed." And with a nod he left the room.
It was a wet, warm July night, or rather morning, for the summer dawn was coming as he left the house, yet he seemed in no hurry to seek his own bed, wherever it might happen to be. Instead, he peered up and down the street as though searching for a hackney carriage or chair; but, seeing none, walked fast up the Haymarket until he came to a night house which was still open, and in which were still many dissolute people of both sexes, drinking and carousing. Then he called for a dram, and ordering the woman who was waiting to bring pen, paper, and sand, sat down and wrote a short note--a note which, when he had sealed and addressed it to "Lord John Dallas," he dropped into his pocket, after which he paid his reckoning and went forth, finding now a chair and two men waiting for a fare outside.
"Carry me," he said, "to Park Place. Then I shall need you to take me to King Street, Covent Garden. A crown will do your business, eh?"