"'I'M QUITE GETTING TO LIKE THE LOOK OF YOUR UGLY FACE.'"
What was the man's real name? And where had I seen that rather wooden smile before?
Ten years on the Lisbon-Cintra line, they say. Then I must have been quite a kid when I met him in England, if I ever did meet him. Ten years—by Jove! can it be Farquhar? Six feet two, determined features, wooden smile—it is Farquhar! Wonder how Nellie Conyers will take this when I tell her. Doubtful, very! But on second thoughts, shall I tell her? H-m! I don't know.
The point is that, although Mrs. Conyers is my second cousin, she is also a young widow, unencumbered; and I am rather afraid of her. She was engaged to Farquhar before she met Conyers, but the match was broken off because of some Indian scandal or other; something about the Viceroy's Cup, I think. Farquhar had a horse entered, which won when it shouldn't, or lost when it shouldn't—I forget which. Anyway, there was unpleasantness, and Farquhar threw up his commission, and offered to release Nellie Vincent from her engagement. She took him at his word, and married the next "eligible" who came along—Amos Conyers, to wit, a Yorkshire wool-comber, since deceased. All things considered, I thought perhaps I wouldn't tell Mrs. Conyers.
But if Cousin Nellie inspired me with awe, the Cintra ticket-examiner didn't; so when the door of the compartment (which, as luck would have it, I had to myself after we left Rio de Mouro) suddenly opened, and the familiar "Com licença" heralded the fact that my legs were as usual in the way, I was prepared.
"Sir," I said, "I was rude to you this morning, and I wish to apologise."
He looked hard at me for a moment; then smiled, and shrugged his shoulders slightly, Portuguese fashion.
"The senhor is pleased to make fun of me," he answered, quietly.
"No; I'm in dead earnest," I declared. "But whose pardon have I the honour to beg—Captain Ian Farquhar's, shall I say?"