“All the better,” snapped the Duke. He drew up a chair, and sat down, facing Holles. He leaned forward. “In your time, no doubt, you will have played many parts, Colonel Holles?”
“Aye—a mort of parts.”
“Have you ever played ... Sir Pandarus of Troy?”
The Duke keenly watched his visitor’s face for some sign of understanding. But the Colonel’s classical education had been neglected.
“I’ve never heard of him. What manner of part may that be?”
His grace did not directly answer. He took another way to his ends.
“Have you ever heard of Sylvia Farquharson?”
Surprised anew, it was a moment before the Colonel answered him.
“Sylvia Farquharson?” he echoed, musing. “I’ve heard the name. Oh! I have it. That was the lady in the sedan-chair your grace rescued yonder in Paul’s Yard on the day we met. Aye, aye. I heard her named at the time. A baggage of a play actress from the Duke’s House, I think. But what has she to do with us?”
“Something I think—unless the stars are wrong. And the stars are never wrong. They stand immutable and true in a false and fickle world. It is written in them—as I have already told you—that we were to meet again, you and I, and be jointly concerned in a fateful matter with one other. That other, my friend, is this same Sylvia Farquharson.”