"Your lordship is right. I have some pleasant airy rooms in the Gray's Inn Road, overlooking the old Inn garden and Lord Bacon's catalpa-tree, where I shall be enchanted to see you two gentlemen any afternoon that you will drop in upon me for a dish of tea, and will condescend to listen to an act or so of a new comedy which only cabal and self-interest have kept off the boards of Lincoln's Inn."
The three men left the tavern together, Tom Philter highly elated at being seen in the company of a man of Lavendale's rank and fashion. He could not help swaggering a little as he picked his way through the room, with elbows jauntily elevated, and slim court rapier swaying at his side, and hat cocked lightly over the left eyebrow.
"Now, Mr. Philter," said Lavendale, when they were in the shadowy street, where the lamps were unlit when the moon was at the full, albeit Luna is a somewhat capricious luminary, given to dodging behind clouds, "tell me what you mean about Vyvyan Topsparkle and his guilty secrets. You seem to be on such familiar terms with the valet that you must needs know something about the master. You and Monsieur Fétis have often hob-nobbed together, I take it."
"No, my lord, I do not chink glasses with valets, but I have supped at his house with some of the best company in London. 'Twas a pied-à-terre of Wharton's when he was in his glory; and 'twas there I met the Duke of Bolton and pretty Mrs. Fenton, a poor actress but a sweet little woman, and most disinterestedly devoted to his grace."
"Pshaw, Philter! Who believes in an actress's disinterestedness? But it is not at a ducal supper-party you would hear queer stories of Mr. Topsparkle. No one talks of the past or of the future in such uproarious society as that. Every man lives for the present moment; his hopes and his ambition are bounded by the eyes and lips that are smiling at him; his views of life are as sparkling and as transient as the bubbles on a glass of champagne, and as rosy as the deepest glow of Burgundy. You must have had better opportunities of drawing Monsieur Fétis!"
"Fétis is not a man to be drawn, my lord. Walpole himself could not extort a secret from him. He has thriven too well by fidelity to turn traitor. My intelligence comes from higher sources."
"I understand; from some friendly housemaid's attic, no doubt," laughed Lavendale. "Don't be angry, Philter; I forgive you the sources if you will but give me your intelligence. I would give much to know that fribble's past career, with all its dark mysteries."
"That is a tangled web which will take time to unravel," answered the oracle.
"I am willing to devote time, money, patience, anything, to the unravelment!"
"I have no positive information; only vague hints which might afford a clue to a man who would take the pains to follow it."