So Montague made his début in the rôle of knight-errant. He went with many qualms and misgivings, uncertain how each new person would take it. The next evening he was promised for a theatre-party with Siegfried Harvey; and they had supper in a private room at Delmonico’s, and there came Mrs. Winnie, resplendent as an apple tree in early April—and murmuring with bated breath, “Oh, you dreadful man, what have you been doing?”
“Have I been poaching on YOUR preserves?” he asked promptly.
“No, not mine,” she said, “but—” and then she hesitated.
“On Mr. Duval’s?” he asked.
“No,” she said, “not his—but everybody else’s! He was telling me about it to-day—there’s a most dreadful uproar. He wanted me to try to find out what you were up to, and who was behind it.”
Montague listened, wonderingly. Did Mrs. Winnie mean to imply that her husband had asked her to try to worm his business secrets out of him? That was what she seemed to imply. “I told him I never talked business with my friends,” she said. “He can ask you himself, if he chooses. But what DOES it all mean, anyhow?”
Montague smiled at the naive inconsistency.
“It means nothing,” said he, “except that I am trying to get justice for a client.”
“But can you afford to make so many powerful enemies?” she asked.
“I’ve taken my chances on that,” he replied.