“Quite so, quite so,” assented Conolly, carelessly.  “Good-bye, Lind.”  And he took his hat and went out.

“By George!” said Marmaduke, admiringly, “he did that damned well—­damned well.  Look here, old man:  take my advice and clear out for another year or so.  You cant stay here.  As a looker-on, I see most of the game; and thats my advice to you as a friend.”

Douglas, whose face had reddened and reddened with successive rushes of blood until it was now purple, lost all self-control at Marmaduke’s commiserating tone.  “I will see whether I cannot put him in the wrong,” he burst out, in the debased voice of an ignobly angry man.  “Do you think I will let him tell the world that I have been thrown over and fooled?”

“Thats your own story, isnt it?  At least, I understood you to say so as we came along.”

“Let him say so, and I’ll thrash him like, a dog in the street.  I’ll——­”

“Whats the use of thrashing a man who will simply hand you over to the police? and quite right, too!  What rot!”

“We shall see.  We shall see.”

“Very well.  Do as you like.  You may twist one another’s heads off for what I care.  He has had the satisfaction of putting you into a rage, at all events.”

“I am not in a rage.”

“Very well.  Have it your own way.”

“Will you take a challenge to him from me?”

“No.  I am not a born fool.”

“That is plain speaking.”

Marmaduke put his hands into his pockets, and whistled.  “I think I will take myself off,” he said, presently.

“As you please,” replied Douglas, coldly.

“I will look in on you some day next week, when you have cooled down a bit.  Good-bye.”

Douglas said nothing, and Marmaduke, with a nod, went out.  Some minutes later the servant entered and said that Mr. Lind was below.

“What!  Back again!” said Douglas, with an oath.

“No, sir.  It’s old Mr. Lind—­Mr. Reginald.”

“Did you say I was in?”

“The man belonging to the house did, sir.”

“Confound his officiousness!  I suppose he must come up.”

Reginald Lind entered, and bowed.  Douglas placed a chair for him, and waited, mute, and a little put out.  Mr. Lind’s eyes and voice shewed that he also was not at his ease; but his manner was courtly and his expression grave, as Douglas had, in his boyhood, been accustomed to see them.

“I am sorry, Sholto,” said Mr. Lind, “that I cannot for the present meet you with the cordiality which formerly existed between us.  However unbearable your disappointment at Marian’s marriage may have been, you should not have taken a reprehensible and desperate means of remedying it.  I speak to you now as an old friend—­as one who knew you when the disparity in our ages was more marked than it is at present.”

Douglas bowed.

“I have just heard from Mr. Conolly—­whom I met accidentally in Pall Mall—­that you have returned from America.  He gave me no further account of you, except that he had met you and spoken to you here.  I hope nothing unpleasant passed.”