“What was that?”
“The fact that the family possessed a kind of ward or adopted daughter, who was being educated abroad.”
“So—they did not tell you that?”
“Not a syllable of it,” and Captain Macartney eyed keenly the uncommunicative face before him.
“Why should they have told you?” said Dr. Camperdown.
“Why—why,” echoed his visitor in some confusion, his face growing furiously red, “for the very good reason that that is the girl with whom I have chosen to fall in love.”
Camperdown shrugged his huge shoulders. “How did they know you’d fall in love with the daughter of their poor devil of a bookkeeper?”
Captain Macartney half rose from his seat. “Camperdown,” he said haughtily, “in the old days we were friends; you and your father before you were deep in the secrets of the house of Armour. I come to you for information which I am not willing to seek at the club or in the hotels. Who is Miss Vivienne Delavigne?”
“Sit down, sit down,” said Camperdown surlily and impatiently. “Scratch a Russian and you’ll find a Tartar, and scratch an Irishman and you’ll find a fire-eater, and every sensible man is a fool when he falls in love. What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”