Yet the visitor, bluff and hearty of speech, stood smiling at me with a calmness that was absolutely amazing. In the first instant, I wondered whether the dim light of the corridor had deceived me, or whether his face only resembled in a marked degree the dusty wayfarer who had refreshed himself with such gusto at the Stanchester Arms. Suddenly I recollected that although I had watched him on that hot afternoon, he had been unable to see me where I remained in the publican’s back parlour. There was a screen on purpose to hide any person seated in the little low inner room from the vulgar gaze of those in the tap-room, and at the moment he had faced me I had been peeping round the corner watching him. As I crossed the room he had seen my back, of course, but his self-assurance at the moment of our meeting made it quite plain that he did not recognise me.
The dim light having concealed my surprise, I quickly regained my self-possession, and with effusive greeting asked him into my room.
“Lord Stanchester, her ladyship, and most of the party are still out,” I explained. “There’s been a big shoot to-day. He asked me to entertain you until he returned,” I said, when he had seated himself in an armchair.
His tall figure seemed somewhat accentuated; his dark face, however, no longer wore that expression of weariness, but on the other hand he seemed hale and hearty, and had it not been for his rather rough speech, he might, in his well-cut suit of grey tweed, have passed for a gentleman.
“Oh! her ladyship is at home, then?” exclaimed the man who called himself Smeeton. “I’ve not yet had the pleasure of meeting her. In fact I haven’t been in England since the Earl’s marriage.”
“You’re a big-game hunter, I hear,” I remarked.
“I shoot a little,” was his modest rejoinder. “I shot with Lord Stanchester in Africa, one season, and we had fair sport. I notice that he has some of his trophies in the hall. By Jove!” he added. “He’s a splendid sportsman—doesn’t know what fear is. When we were together he got in some very tight corners. More than once it was only by mere chance that there was an heir left to the title. It wasn’t through recklessness either, but sheer pluck.”
He at any rate seemed to possess an unbounded admiration for my friend.
“You spend most of your time abroad?” I remarked, hoping to be able to gather some further facts.
“Well, yes. I have a house abroad,” he answered. “I find England a nice place to visit occasionally. There’s no place in the world like London, and no street like Piccadilly. But I’m a born wanderer, and am constantly on the wing in one or other of the five continents, yet at infrequent intervals I return to London, stand for a moment beside the lions in Trafalgar Square, and thank my lucky planet that I’m born an Englishman.” He laughed in his own bluff hearty way.