"This is a memorable day, brother. The tumblers are empty. Allow me. And, Cornelius, I really do think that, considering the way in which we have been treated by Phillis Fleming, and her remarks about afternoon work, we ought to call and let her understand the reality of our reputation."
"We will, Humphrey. But it is not enough to recover lost ground; we must advance farther. The fortress shall be made to surrender."
"Let us drink to your success, brother, and couple with the toast the name of Phillis—Phillis—Phillis Jagenal, brother?"
They drank that toast, smiling unutterable things.
CHAPTER XXIII.
"Call me not fool till Heaven hath sent me fortune."
When Jack Dunquerque communicated to Lawrence Colquhoun the fact of having made the acquaintance of Miss Fleming, and subsequently that of Mrs. L'Estrange, Lawrence expressed no surprise and felt no suspicions. Probably, had he felt any, they would have been at once set aside, because Colquhoun was not a man given to calculate the future chances, and to disquiet himself about possible events. Also at this time he was taking little interest in Phillis. A pretty piquante girl; he devoted a whole day to her; drove her to Twickenham, and placed her in perfect safety under the charge of his cousin. What more was wanted? Agatha wrote to him twice a week or so, and when he had time he read the letters. They were all about Phillis, and most of them contained the assurance that he had no entanglements to fear.
"Entanglements!" he murmured impatiently. "As if a man cannot dine with a girl without falling in love with her. Women are always thinking that men want to be married."
He was forgetting, after the fashion of men who have gone through the battle, how hot is the fight for those who are just beginning it. Jack Dunquerque was four-and-twenty; he was therefore, so to speak, in the thick of it. Phillis's eyes were like two quivers filled with darts, and when she turned them innocently upon her friend the enemy, the darts flew straight at him, and transfixed him as if he were another Sebastian. Colquhoun's time was past; he was clothed in the armour of indifference which comes with the years, and he was forgetting the past.
Still, had he known of the visit to the Tower of London, the rowing on the river, the luncheons in Carnarvon Square, it is possible that even he might have seen the propriety of requesting Jack Dunquerque to keep out of danger for the future.