But of all the foes to this intimacy Dick Shand was for a time the most bitter and the most determined No doubt this arose at first from jealousy.  He had declared his purpose of unravelling the mystery; but the task had been taken out of his hands, and the unravelling was being done by another.  And the more that the woman was abused, and the more intent were all the people in regard to her wicked determination to be intimate with Caldigate, the more interesting she became.  Dick, who was himself the very imp of imprudence,—­who had never been deterred from doing anything he fancied by any glimmer of control,—­would have been delighted to be the hero of all the little stories that were being told.  But as that morsel of bread had been taken, as it were, from between his very teeth by the unjustifiable interference of his friend, he had become more alive than any one else to the danger of the whole proceeding.  He acknowledged to the Captain that his friend was making a fool of himself; and, though he was a little afraid of Caldigate, he resolved upon interfering.

‘Don’t you think you are making an ass of yourself about this woman?’ he said.

‘I daresay I am.’

‘Well!’

’All the wise men, from David downwards, have made asses of themselves about women; and why should I be wiser than the rest?’

‘That’s nonsense, you know.’

‘Very likely.’

‘I am trying to talk to you in earnest.’

’You make such a failure of it, old boy, that I am compelled to talk nonsense in return.  The idea of your preaching!  Here I am with nothing special to do, and I like to amuse myself.  Ought not that to be enough for you?’

‘But what is to be the end of it?’ Dick Shand asked, very solemnly.

’How can I tell?  But the absurdity is that such a man as you should talk about the end of anything.  Did you ever look before you leaped in your life?’

’We are to be together, you know, and it won’t do for us to be hampered with that woman.’

’Won’t it?  Then let me tell you that, if I choose to hamper myself with that woman, or with a whole harem of women, and am not deterred by any consideration for myself, I certainly shall not be deterred by any consideration for you.  Do you understand me?’

‘That is not being a true partner,’ said Shand.

’I’m quite sure of this,—­that I’m likely to be as true as you are.  I’m not aware that I have entered into any terms with you by which I have bound myself to any special mode of living.  I have left England, as I fancy you have done also, because I desired more conventional freedom than one can find among the folk at home.  And now, on the first outset, I am to be cautioned and threatened by you because I have made acquaintance with a young woman.  Of all the moral pastors and masters that one might come across in the world, you, Dick Shand, appear to me to be the most absurd.  But you are so far right as this, that if my conduct is shocking to you, you had better leave me to my wickedness.’