"When you fainted in Welbeck Place," began the dwarf with great emphasis and deliberation.
"Ay," said Hanbury with a start and in a voice of sharp and painful wakefulness. For a while he had forgotten why he had so uncouth a companion.
"When you fainted in Welbeck Place," repeated Leigh coldly, steadily, "I went over to where you were lying, took off my hat to your young lady----"
"Eh?" interrupted Hanbury, with a grimace. "Great Heavens," he thought, "is Dora Ashton, grand-daughter of Lord Byngfield, to be called 'my young lady' by this creature? Why doesn't he call her my young woman, at once? Ugh!"
"I was saying when you interrupted me," said Leigh sternly (it was plain to Hanbury this man was not going to overlook any point of advantage in his position) "that when you were lying in a dead faint in Welbeck Place, and I went to offer help, I took off my hat to your young lady and said, 'Miss Grace, can I be of any use?' or words to that effect."
"I do not wonder." He forgot for a moment his annoyance and disgust. "It is the most astonishing likeness I ever saw in all my life. It may be possible to detect a difference between the two when they are side by side, but I could not tell one from the other when apart."
"Hah! You could not tell one from the other. I could not when I first saw your young lady----"
"May I ask you to say Miss Ashton, or if you would still further oblige me, not to speak of the lady at all."
"Oh-ho! That's the sort of thing it is, is it? Hah! Sly dog! Knowing shaver! Hot 'un!"
Hanbury's face blazed, and for a moment he seemed about to forget himself, turn on the dwarf and rend him. Making a powerful effort he controlled his rage. "You are disastrously wrong, and you give me great pain."