Still unsatisfied of mind, I waited, and sat down in the hammock that Enriquez had quitted.  A scrap of paper was lying in its meshes, which at first appeared to be of the kind from which Enriquez rolled his cigarettes; but as I picked it up to throw it away, I found it was of much firmer and stouter material.  Looking at it more closely, I was surprised to recognize it as a piece of the tinted drawing-paper torn off the “block” that Miss Mannersley had used.  It had been deeply creased at right angles as if it had been folded; it looked as if it might have been the outer half of a sheet used for a note.

It might have been a trifling circumstance, but it greatly excited my curiosity.  I knew that he had returned the sketch to Miss Mannersley, for I had seen it in her hand.  Had she given him another?  And if so, why had it been folded to the destruction of the drawing?  Or was it part of a note which he had destroyed?  In the first impulse of discovery I walked quickly with it toward the gateway where Enriquez had disappeared, intending to restore it to him.  He was just outside talking with a young girl.  I started, for it was Jocasta—­Miss Mannersley’s maid.

With this added discovery came that sense of uneasiness and indignation with which we illogically are apt to resent the withholding of a friend’s confidence, even in matters concerning only himself.  It was no use for me to reason that it was no business of mine, that he was right in keeping a secret that concerned another—­and a lady; but I was afraid I was even more meanly resentful because the discovery quite upset my theory of his conduct and of Miss Mannersley’s attitude toward him.  I continued to walk on to the gateway, where I bade Enriquez a hurried good-by, alleging the sudden remembrance of another engagement, but without appearing to recognize the girl, who was moving away when, to my further discomfiture, the rascal stopped me with an appealing wink, threw his arms around my neck, whispered hoarsely in my ear, “Ah! you see—­you comprehend—­but you are the mirror of discretion!” and returned to Jocasta.  But whether this meant that he had received a message from Miss Mannersley, or that he was trying to suborn her maid to carry one, was still uncertain.  He was capable of either.  During the next two or three weeks I saw him frequently; but as I had resolved to try the effect of ignoring Miss Mannersley in our conversation, I gathered little further of their relations, and, to my surprise, after one or two characteristic extravagances of allusion, Enriquez dropped the subject, too.  Only one afternoon, as we were parting, he said carelessly:  “My friend, you are going to the casa of Mannersley tonight.  I too have the honor of the invitation.  But you will be my Mercury—­my Leporello—­you will take of me a message to thees Mees Boston, that I am crushed, desolated, prostrate, and flabbergasted—­that I cannot arrive, for I have of that night to sit up with the grand-aunt of my brother-in-law, who has a quinsy to the death.  It is sad.”