The cool assurance of the dwarf's manner, and the simple directness of the question with which he finished his speech, had the effect of numbing Hanbury's faculties, and confusing his purpose. "The relations between Miss Ashton and me are not a subject I care to speak of, and I beg of you to say no more of the matter," said he, with clumsiness, arising from disgust and annoyance, and the sense of helplessness.
"Hah! I thought so. Now if you were only as clever as Miss Ashton, you would not allow me to find out how matters stood between you and her, as you have plainly done by your answer. You are a young man, and in life many things are against a young man. In an encounter of this kind his bad temper is his chief foe. Hah!"
Hanbury's head was fiery hot, and his mind in a whirl. Things and people around him were blurred and dim to his eyes. "I have performed my part of the contract," he said, with impotent fury, "had we not better go now? This is no place for scenes or lectures, for lectures by even the most able and best qualified."
This conversation had been conducted in suppressed voices, inaudible to all ears but those of the speakers, and most of it by the open window, Miss Ashton being at her former position in the other one looking into the street.
"Yes, you have done your part. You have introduced me to Miss Ashton, or rather Mrs. Ashton has done so, and that is the same thing. I am perfectly satisfied so far. I do not ask you to do any more. I am not a levier of blackmail. I, too, have performed my part of the contract. So far we are quits. We are as though we had never met. If you have any engagement or wish that draws you away from this place I do not see why you should remain. If you want to go, by all means go. I shall stay. Hah!"
"What! Mr. Leigh, you do not mean to say you intend using my introduction here, which I undertook in compliance with your whim, as the means of effecting a lodgment!"
Leigh sprinkled a few drops of eau-de-cologne from his little silver flask into the palms of his long brown-yellow hands and sniffed it up noisily. "You do not use eau-de-cologne? You are wrong. It is refreshing--most refreshing. If you had been poring over retorts and crucibles until your very marrow was turned to dust, burnt-up to powder, you'd appreciate eau-de-cologne. It's most refreshing. It is, indeed. I am not going away from this place yet; but do not let me detain you if business or pleasure is awaiting you anywhere else. Do not stand on ceremony with me, my dear sir."
Hanbury ground his teeth and groaned. Sinbad's Old Man of the Sea was pleasant company compared with this hideous monster. Go from this place leaving him behind! John Hanbury would sooner fling himself head-foremost from that window than walk down the stairs without this hateful incubus. He now knew Leigh too well to try and divert or win him from his purpose. The dwarf was one of those men who see the object they desire to the exclusion of all other objects, and never take their eyes off it until it is in their hands. Once having brought Leigh here, he must hold himself at his mercy until it pleased the creature to take himself off. How deplorably helpless and mean and degraded he felt! He had never been in so exasperating and humiliating a position before, and to feel as he felt now, and be so circumstanced in this house above all other houses in London! It was not to be borne.
Then he reflected on the events which had drawn him into the predicament. He had gone down that atrocious Chetwynd Street at Dora's request, and against his own wish, conviction, instinct. They had seen the hateful place, and the odious people who lived there. That accident had befallen him, and while he was insensible Dora had given this man their names. He had come back to prevent their names getting into the newspapers, and found this man in the act of meditating a paragraph, with the "Post Office Directory" before him. He saw this man was not open to a money-bribe, but still he was open to a bribe, and the bribe was, to state it shortly, bringing him here, and introducing him to Dora. He introduced him to Mrs. Ashton, and, seeing that he brought Leigh to her house, she naturally thought he was a great friend of his! Good heavens, a great friend of his!
Only for Dora nothing of this would ever have happened. It all arose out of her foolish interest in the class of people of whom Leigh was a specimen. It was poetic justice on her that Leigh should insist upon coming here. Would it not be turning this visit into a useful lesson to her if she were allowed to see more of this specimen of the people? The kind of mind this man had? The kind of man he was? Yes, they should go to Dora.