Captain O’Hagan bowed.
“Miss Chatterton, your pardon. Sir Brian Dillon, I presume? Might I ask you, my good girl”—to the staring maid—“to withdraw.”
He held the door open.
“Here, I say!” burst out Miss Chatterton. “Who are you? What’s it all about——”
“I am Captain O’Hagan. I have a family matter to discuss with Sir Brian; and I wish you, Miss Chatterton, to be present.”
He waved his monocle towards the maid, and then in the direction of the open door. The girl stood up, looked at her mistress, but saw her to be as helpless as herself; looked at the forceful new arrival, and slowly went out. O’Hagan closed the door. Two pairs of wondering eyes followed his every movement. My friend has a singular quality of personality. I believe he could so enter the House of Lords as to visit consternation upon every peer present, and to set the bishops reviewing their pasts with grave misgivings. Bernard O’Hagan is a mannerist of genius.
Sir Brian Dillon cleared his throat.
“If I might venture on a remark,” he said, with an angry gleam in his grey eyes, “what do you want, and who the devil are you?”
O’Hagan wound the black ribbon about his right forefinger.
“I am the gentleman,” he replied, with frigid distinctness, “whom you saw walking with Lady Dillon in St. James’s Park some days ago, and I am here to demand an explanation!”