II.
WE IMPROVE THE ACQUAINTANCE.
O’Hagan’s friendship is a passport from the commonplace to the amazing. In acknowledgment of this off-handed introduction I bowed, and was mute. The Grand Duke nodded. His eyes constantly sought my nonchalant friend.
“How fortunate,” said the latter smoothly, “that the traffic chanced to be delayed.”
Bewildered, utterly, I acquitted myself of an ambiguous nod.
“Where are they?” asked the Grand Duke suddenly. His delivery was thick, unmusical.
“If you will be good enough to glance rearward,” replied O’Hagan, “you will perceive a car which is following closely!”
We were, at that moment, turning around by Trafalgar Square; so that this prediction impressed me as being a peculiarly safe one. The Grand Duke, however, peering through a little window at the back, turned again to O’Hagan with palpable uneasiness. His heavy, dull features marked him a man of bulldog tenacity and autocratic stupidity.
“A green car?” he inquired.
O’Hagan, twisting about one finger the black ribbon attached to his monocle, inclined his head gravely. The tone of the Grand Duke’s query had been peremptory—that of one accustomed to command and to be slavishly obeyed. My friend’s mode of reply—the graceful and dignified inclination of the head, the lowering of the eyelids—had subtly defined, and with exquisite artistry, his attitude toward the Grand Duke.
In that simple inclination he had conveyed: “Duke”—(it were impossible to imagine O’Hagan addressing any man breathing as “Your Highness”)—“Duke, you are in the company of a gentleman at present amicably disposed toward you, but of a gentleman who would as promptly tweak your nose, should you forget what is due to him, as he would tweak any other.”