Lord Loughton walked slowly down the broad staircase, under the eyes of the two tall footmen in the hall. But scarcely had he reached the lowest stair before Mr. Flicker called over the balusters in his most dulcet tones, "My lord--my lord--you have left your pocket-handkerchief behind you." Had some one fired off a gun close by the heads of the two footmen they could not have been more startled.
"Did you not hear, sir?" said the earl, sharply, to one of them. "Fetch me my pocket-handkerchief, and be quick about it."
The man had never climbed those stairs so quickly before. A minute had hardly elapsed before he came down again, carrying a silver salver on which lay his lordship's well-worn green-and-red bandana. The earl took his handkerchief off the salver with the gravest air in the world, and replaced it in his pocket. Then the massive door was flung wide open, and he marched slowly forth into the street. Stopping at the first tavern he came to, and pushing open the swing-doors, he went in and called for fourpennyworth of brandy-and-water and a mild cheroot.
[CHAPTER V.]
TERMS ACCEPTED.
A fortnight passed after Lord Loughton's interview with the dowager countess before he received any further communication from her. During that time life went on with him in its ordinary humdrum fashion. No one either saw or suspected any difference in him. If the misfortunes and mishaps of his earlier life had taught him nothing else, they had at least taught him the virtue of patience. He was emphatically a man who could bide his time.
But at the end of a fortnight there came a note addressed to Mr. Fildew, at the Brown Bear, in which he was informed that the countess would see him at the Charing Cross Hotel at eleven o'clock next morning. He smiled grimly to himself as he read. "We are ashamed of our shabby relation, it seems," he muttered. "We don't want him to call again in Harley Street till he is a little more presentable."
But he was not one whit more presentable when he was ushered into her ladyship's room next morning. "A more deplorable object than ever," were her ladyship's words afterwards to Mr. Flicker. The ends of two fingers had burst completely through his gloves and refused to be hidden any longer, while the shiny patch on one side of his hat was certainly growing in circumference from day to day. It is quite possible that he had some ulterior object to serve in thus appearing at his shabbiest before the countess.
He walked across the room rather more briskly than usual, and when he reached the countess he put out his hand. But her ladyship made believe not to see it, and motioned him to a chair. He took it, not in the slightest degree abashed by her refusal to shake hands with him. The inevitable Mr. Flicker was seated close by, as monumentally cold and as mutely observant as ever.
Her ladyship's first remark was a somewhat singular one. "Mr. Flicker," she said, "will you oblige me by looking behind the left ear of--of the person opposite to me, just at the back of the lobe, and tell me whether you find a large mole there?"