And then I heard the other man—­the man of the musical voice—­talk about Lady Sinfi with the greatest admiration and regard.  He wound up by saying, ’By the bye, where is she now?  I should like to use her in painting my new picture.’

‘She’s in Wales; so Kiomi told me.’

‘Ah yes!  I remember she has an extraordinary passion for Snowdon.’

‘Her passion is now for something else, though.’

‘What’s that?’

‘A man.’

‘I never saw a girl so indifferent to men as Lady Sinfi.’

’She is living at this moment as the mistress of a cousin of Cyril Aylwin.’

My blood boiled with rage.  I lost all control of myself.  I longed to feel his face against my knuckles.

‘That’s not true,’ I said in a rather loud voice.

He started up, and turned round, saying in a hectoring voice, ’What was that you said to me?  Will you repeat your words?’

‘To repeat one’s words,’ I said quietly, ’shows a limited vocabulary, so I will put it thus,—­what you said just now about Sinfi Lovell being the mistress of Cyril Aylwin’s cousin is a lie.’

’You dare to give me the lie, sir?  And what the devil do you mean by listening to our conversation?’

The threatening look that he managed to put into his face was so entirely histrionic that it made me laugh outright.  This seemed to damp his courage more than if I had sprung up and shown fight.  The man had a somewhat formidable appearance, however, as regards build, which showed that he possessed more than average strength.  It was the manifest genuineness of my laugh that gave him pause.  And when I sat with my elbows on the table and my face between my palms, taking stock of him quietly, he looked extremely puzzled.  The man of the musical voice sat and looked at me as though under a spell.

‘I am a young man from the country,’ I said to him.  ’To what theatre is your histrionic friend attached?  I should like to see him in a better farce than this.’

‘Do you hear that, De Castro?’ said the other.  ’What is your theatre?’

‘If he is really excited,’ I said, ’tell him that people at a public supper-room should speak in a moderate tone or their conversation is likely to be overheard.’

‘Do you hear this young man from the country, De Castro?’ said he.  ‘You seem to be the Oraculum of the hay-fields, sir,’ he continued, turning to me with a delightfully humorous expression on his face.  ‘Have you any other Delphic utterance?’

‘Only this,’ I said, ’that people who do not like being given the lie should tell the truth.’

’May I be permitted to guess your Christian name, sir?  Is it Martin, perchance?’

‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘and my surname is Tupper.’  He then got up and laid his hand on the raconteur’s shoulder, and said, ’Don’t be a fool, De Castro.  When a man looks at another as the author of the Proverbial Philosophy is looking at you, he knows that he can use his fists as well as his pen.’