“Oh! has he? You mean, then, he didn’t refuse you the twenty thousand?”
“He refused it from the best of motives. I was rather a strenuous fool in those days, and thought everything should come my way. If I didn’t see what I wanted, I imagined all I had to do was to ask for it. I left the Colonel in a temper, and I realise now that I did worthy people a great injustice.”
“Some one else was involved, then, as well as the Colonel?”
“Yes. I was engaged to his niece, and, as there is no secret about it, I may as well inform you that the engagement has been renewed to-day.”
The Consul whistled and then checked himself, as if this indication of surprise were not quite appropriate to so serious an announcement.
“Well, John, I congratulate you. She is a very handsome girl.”
“Extremely so,” answered the happy man, as he gloomily and abruptly took his departure.
The frivolous Consul was now at liberty to whistle as long as he liked, and he did so. Then he took to muttering to himself.
“I don’t admire the position of affairs a little bit. My friend John resembles a man who’s just got a life sentence. He was thunderstruck when I mentioned Beck to him last night, and quite evidently didn’t wish me to leave him alone with the Colonel. I distrust the Beck contingent. By St. Jonathan, I’ll try a little ruse with the gallant Colonel, which at least can do no harm.”
The friendly Stokes pondered deeply over the situation, until his meditations were interrupted by the entrance of the Colonel himself. He had come in quest of letters, for the Consulate was post-office-in-ordinary to various tourists from the States.