"The boy plays marvellously," said the old peer; "he's a credit to you, Dalziel."
"He'll make his bread by it, easily, if need be," returned Dalziel.
"You have not decided, then, whether he's to come right out as a professional or not?"
"Not quite; but it's more than likely he will."
"Most providential he has the gift. He'd have been a sad burden to you otherwise. You picked him up most romantically, I remember——"
"Telegram for Mr. Dalziel," said a waiter.
Arthur glanced at it hastily and handed it to Lord Trenoweth.
The old lord read it carefully. Then he shook hands warmly with his companion, saying, in an undertone: "She's yours, my lord; she's yours."
Thereupon Dalziel quietly withdrew, and Society heard from Lord Trenoweth that Lord Alison was dead. Society smiled and awaited further developments, feeling quite certain what these would be, and, for once in a way, grievously miscalculating.
Giovanni would be twenty-one the next day, the day on which Dalziel had determined that justice should be done: but that night Giovanni and he each attended a funeral. Neither funeral was Lord Alison's. Dalziel interred, dry-eyed, an old, good resolution; Giovanni buried, with one or two bitter tears, his young heart's first love.