Guy Spencer puffed leisurely at his cigar, and regarded his rotund little friend with an amused smile. Spencer was about thirty, Tommy was old enough to be his father. But he wore well.
"Most excellent Tommy, how many times have I heard you say the same thing? Every girl you come across is the most charming you have ever met—until one sees you the next week. And then, the last girl has the super-charm—like the young lady you just mentioned, Miss Stella Keane."
But Esmond was not to be rebuffed by a clumsy attempt at humour on the part of a young man so much his junior. Besides, Tommy was impervious to humour. It fell off him, like water from a duck's back. In his way he was a very strenuous little man, he had no time to frivol.
"Don't try to be funny, old man: it doesn't suit you. Be sensible, and come round with me to Mrs. L'Estrange's flat and be introduced to Miss Keane."
"It's an interesting suggestion, Tommy, but before I decide tell me first—who is Mrs. L'Estrange, and secondly, who and what is Miss Keane?"
And Tommy Esmond launched forth on a full flow of narrative. Mrs. L'Estrange was the first cousin of a well-known Irish earl, and was—well, in somewhat reduced circumstances, and had a snug little flat in the Cadogan district.
"Mrs. L'Estrange is quite satisfactorily explained," remarked Guy, interrupting his rather voluble friend. "Now what do you really know about Miss Keane?"
Here, Esmond was a little less precise. Mrs. L'Estrange he knew quite well, had known her ever since he had been in London; her ancestry and connections were unimpeachable.
Miss Keane, it would appear, had been suddenly projected into the L'Estrange household, as it were, from space. He understood that she was a distant connection, a far-off cousin, but he could give no particulars.
Tommy, with the born instinct of the true diplomatist, was always ready to present everything in its best light, but he lacked the one essential quality of the born diplomatist—he was not very successful when he came to camouflaging facts.