“Very well, sir. I lie. I am not mystified.”
Said Mrs. de Gramercy in distress: “I think, then, I will leave you, since I can do nothing——”
“You will kindly stay, Eleanour. Surely you see that the occasion needs the authority of your presence!”
“Yes, please stay, Mrs. de Gramercy,” Mr. Maturin begged. “For if I am called a liar by my host while you are present, Heaven only knows what I may not be called when you are gone. Please stay. And, if I may, I would like to congratulate you on a very beautiful and talented daughter.”
Quivering with passion, the gigantic old man raised an arm. Mr. Maturin did not move. He was lazy, and disliked moving.
“Mr. Maturin,” the old man whispered just audibly, “you are an unbelievable cad! You are the—sir, you are the ace of cads!”
“Father, please!” the lady begged from the shadows, but in return Mr. Maturin begged her not to be distressed, protesting that the insult was not so pointed as it first appeared, whereas it would certainly be provoking to be called the deuce of cads, which in the degree of degradations must take a place near that of being run over by a Ford car. “But please continue, Sir Guy. Your last words were that I am the ace of cads. I would beg you not be constrained by any such small consideration as my presence in your house.”
“Sit down, sit down,” said a hidalgo to a hound, but it was Sir Guy himself who sat down, while the other remained standing before the fireplace. Mr. Maturin, for all his forty odd years of self-indulgence, had still a very good figure, and he liked to be seen at his best. He has, in point of fact, the best figure of any man in this book, and should therefore be treated with some respect. Mrs. de Gramercy, a shadow of distress, sat in a deep chair away in the dimness of the room. And the thousands of books around the oak walls lent a fictitious air of dignity to an occasion which must have embarrassed any but a grand seigneur and an ace of cads. Sir Guy, with a perceptible effort at calm, addressed Mr. Maturin:
“As you may have gathered, sir, I want you to do me a service——”
“Only a great brain like mine could have divined it, sir.”