But his suspense was curtailed, and his inquiries were converted into a matter of courtesy, by a visit which he received after breakfast from Mr. Thomasson.  A glance at the tutor’s smiling, unctuous face was enough.  Mr. Thomasson also had had his dark hour—­since to be mixed up with, a fashionable fracas was one thing, and to lose a valuable and influential pupil, the apple of his mother’s eye, was another; but it was past, and he gushed over with gratulations.

‘My dear Sir George,’ he cried, running forward and extending his hands, ’how can I express my thankfulness for your escape?  I am told that the poor dear fellow fought with a fury perfectly superhuman, and had you given ground must have ran you through a dozen times.  Let us be thankful that the result was otherwise.’  And he cast up his eyes.

‘I am,’ Sir George said, regarding him rather grimly.  ’I do not know that Mr. Dunborough shares the feeling.’

‘The dear man!’ the tutor answered, not a whit abashed.  ’But he is better.  The surgeon has extracted the ball and pronounces him out of danger.’

‘I am glad to hear it,’ Soane answered heartily.  ’Then, now I can get away.’

‘A volonte!’ cried Mr. Thomasson in his happiest vein.  And then with a roguish air, which some very young men found captivating, but which his present companion stomached with difficulty, ’I will not say that you have come off the better, after all, Sir George,’ he continued.

‘Ah!’

‘No,’ said the tutor roguishly.  ’Tut-tut.  These young men!  They will at a woman by hook or crook.’

‘So?’ Sir George said coldly.  ‘And the latest instance?’

’His Chloe—­and a very obdurate, disdainful Chloe at that—­has come to nurse him,’ the tutor answered, grinning.  ’The prettiest high-stepping piece you ever saw, Sir George—­that I will swear!—­and would do you no discredit in London.  It would make your mouth water to see her.  But he could never move her; never was such a prude.  Two days ago he thought he had lost her for good and all—­there was that accident, you understand.  And now a little blood lost—­and she is at his pillow!’

Sir George reddened at a sudden thought he had.  ’And her father unburied!’ he cried, rising to his feet.  This Macaroni was human, after all.

Mr. Thomasson stared in astonishment.  ‘You know?’ he said.  ’Oh fie, Sir George, have you been hunting already?  Fie!  Fie!  And all London to choose from!’

But Sir George simply repeated, ‘And her father not buried, man?’

‘Yes,’ Mr. Thomasson answered with simplicity.  ’He was buried this morning.  Oh, that is all right.’

‘This morning?  And the girl went from that—­to Dunborough’s bedside?’ Sir George exclaimed in indignation.