It was his turn to start, though the motion was almost imperceptible.
"Even our voices!" he muttered. "Who was the fool who said that miracles don't happen?"
I shook my head. "The likeness," I said, "appears to extend to our ignorance."
There was a short silence, during which we still looked each other up and down with the same frank interest. Then he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a slim, gold card-case.
"My name," he said, "is Stuart Northcote. You may have heard of it." He held out a card.
I don't think I showed my surprise, though goodness knows I felt it. Like most people in London, I had certainly heard of Stuart Northcote. Indeed, I could hardly have avoided doing so, considering that the Society papers had been full of little else but his doings and his wealth ever since he appeared mysteriously from nowhere at the beginning of the season, and rented Lord Lammersfield's house in Park Lane.
However, I accepted his card without comment, as though a meeting with a millionaire double were an everyday event in my own existence.
"My own name," I said, "is John Burton. I am afraid that a card-case is outside my present scheme of things."
He bowed. "Well, Mr. Burton," he began deliberately, "since chance has thrown us together in this fashion, it seems a pity not to improve our acquaintance. If you are in no hurry, perhaps you would give me the pleasure of your society at supper?"
I don't know what it was—something in his voice, perhaps—but, anyhow, I had a curious instinct that he was extremely anxious I should accept. I thought I would test him.