"I don't know about Deering, nor do I care much," returned Captain Verner, bluntly; "but it has been a desperate grief to the mother. Why, when we were children together—ay, and after—Lady Frances was the life of us all. I never saw a girl with so much go in her; and now!"—he broke off expressively. "However, no one can help her," he added, after a moment; and then quickly turning the subject, began to talk of French politics, till they reached the corner of the Champs Elysées, where they paused to see the Empress drive by. There Verner turned back to keep an engagement, and Glynn strolled on slowly to his hotel, resolutely resisting a strong temptation to call and inquire for Miss Lambert. Indeed, with the help of a good deal of letter-writing and interviews with sundry personages of financial importance, Glynn contrived to keep his mind free from imaginative pictures and irresistible suggestions. He was not going to make a fool of himself, or of any one else, either; he was too old and experienced to be carried away by a romantic encounter, or the liquid loveliness of a pair of lustrous, dreamy, dark-blue eyes. "What eyes they are!" he thought, as he sat at his second déjeuné, on Sunday morning, three whole days since he had enjoyed the hospitality of his quondam comrade of the Californian episode. "Mere civility demands that I should call. I think I have been under fire often enough to stand this last fusillade without flinching; besides, the whole thing is deucedly curious." So, after looking in at Gaglinane's, and reading the English papers, Glynn found himself on his way to the Rue de L'Evêque.
The perfume of orange-blossoms which came forth from the opening door greeted him like the prelude of delight, so vividly did it remind him of the pleasant hours to which his first visit was an introduction.
"Yes, monsieur was at home, and mademoiselle also," and the servant, opening a different door from that through which she had ushered him on the former occasion, spoke to some one within, and immediately Lambert himself, in a gorgeous dressing-gown, a fez on his head, and a cigarette in his mouth, came forth to greet him.
"Glynn, come along into my den here. I thought you had left for some other diggings. I was going to look you up to-day. I've not had a moment I could call my own since we parted!" While he spoke he ushered his visitor into a small, very small room, containing a large knee-hole table loaded with letters, newspapers, small account-books, and all appliances for writing, and two very comfortable circular-chairs. These articles of furniture scarcely left room to move. A looking-glass, surmounted by a couple of revolvers, completed the decorations. A dim light was admitted by a long, narrow stained-glass window; and a second door, which stood open, led into a comfortably furnished dining-room.
"This is my Cabinet de travaille," said Lambert, wheeling round one of the chairs; "and I am just taking an hour or two from the Sabbath to clear up some little arrears of work. Where have you been all these days?"
"Very busy, or I should have paid my respects to you and Miss Lambert sooner."
"To be sure, to be sure, you are in business yourself. Anything in the book-making way? I think I remember you had a fair notion as to the value of a horse."
"No; mine is a more sober system of gambling."
"Aha! the share market! I could give you a hint or two about that new steamship company they are getting up in Hamburg."
"Thank you, my hands are pretty full already."