Rousing himself from his momentary bewilderment, Villiers remembered the duties of hospitality.
"Have you dined, Alwyn?" he asked, with his hand on the bell.
"Excellently!" was the response, accompanied by a bright upward glance; "I went to that big hotel opposite the Park, had dinner, left the surplus of my luggage in charge, selected one small portmanteau, took a hansom and came on here, resolved to pass one night at least under your roof …"
"One night!" interrupted Villiers; "You're very much mistaken, if you think you are going to get off so easily! You'll not escape from me for a month, I tell you! Consider yourself a prisoner!"
"Good! Send for the luggage to-morrow!" laughed Alwyn, flinging himself back in his chair in an attitude of lazy comfort, "I give in!—I resign myself to my fate! But what of the 'cello?"
And he pointed to the bulgy-looking casket of sweet sleeping sounds—sleeping generally so far as Villiers was concerned, but ready to wake at the first touch of the master-hand. Villiers glanced at it with a comical air of admiring vanquishment.
"Oh, never mind the 'cello!" he said indifferently, "that can bear being put by for a while. It's a most curious instrument,—sometimes it seems to sound better when I have let it rest a little. Just like a human thing, you know—it gets occasionally tired of me, I suppose! But I say, why didn't you come straight here, bag, baggage, and all? … What business had you to stop on the way at any hotel? … Do you call that friendship?"
Alwyn laughed at his mock injured tone.
"I apologize, Villiers! … I really do! But I felt it would be scarcely civil of me to come down upon you for bed, board, and lodging, without giving you previous notice, and at the same time I wanted to take you by surprise, as I DID. Besides I wasn't sure whether I should find you in town—of course I knew I should be welcome if you were!"
"Rather!" assented Villiers shortly and with affected gruffness.. "If you were sure of nothing else in this world, you might be sure of that!".. He paused squared his shoulders, and put up his eyeglass, through which he scanned his friend with such a persistently scrutinizing air, that Alwyn was somewhat amused.