“I thought you had had a row, at least a misunderstanding of some sort, with—­with my father?”

“Why, yes, so I had,” replied Dudley, serenely, as he took a newspaper out of his pocket and folded it for reading.  “But I’ve written to him already this morning, explaining things, and telling him that I propose to come down to The Beeches this evening.  He’ll get it before I turn up, I should think, for I posted it at six o’clock this morning.”

“Why, what were you doing at six o’clock in the morning?” said Max, in a tone of bewilderment, as before.  “Didn’t you go to bed at all last night?”

“No,” answered Dudley, calmly.  “I had some worrying things to think about, and so I took the night to do it in.”

A slight frown passed over his face as he spoke, but it disappeared quickly, leaving him as placid as before.

“About one of the things I can consult you, Max.  You know something about it, I suppose.  Do you think I have any chance with Doreen?”

Max stared at him again.

“You must be blind if you haven’t seen that you have,” he said, at last, in a sort of muffled voice, grudgingly.  He moved uneasily in his seat, and added, in a hurried manner:  “But, I say, you know, Dudley, after last night, I—­I want to ask you something myself.  I’m Doreen’s brother, though I’m not much of a brother for such a nice girl as she is.  And—­and—­what on earth did you think of going to Liverpool for with a woman?  I’ve a right to ask that now, haven’t I?”

Max blurted out these words in a dogged tone, not deterred from finishing his sentence by the fact that Dudley’s face had grown white and hard, and that over his whole attitude there had come a rapid change.

There was a pause when the younger man had finished.  Dudley kept his eyes down, and traced a pattern on the table-cloth with a fork, while Max looked at him furtively.  At last Dudley looked up quickly and asked, in a tone which admitted of no prevarication in the answer he demanded: 

“You have been playing the spy upon me, I see.  Tell me just how much you saw.”

It was such a straightforward way of coming to the point that Max, taken aback, but rather thankful that the ground was to be cleared a little, answered at once without reserve: 

“I did play the spy.  It was enough to make me.  I saw the hansom waiting outside your door last night; the cabman mistook me for you, and told me the lady had walked away.  I couldn’t help putting that together with what you had told me about seeing a friend off to Liverpool, and, perhaps, going there yourself.  Now, who could have helped it?”

Dudley did not at once answer.  He just glanced inquiringly at the face of Max while he went on tracing the pattern on the cloth.

“You didn’t see the lady,” he said at last, not in a questioning tone, but with conviction.

“No.”

“Well, if you had seen her you would have been satisfied that it was not her charms which were leading me astray,” said he, with a faint smile.  “Are you satisfied now, or do you still consider,” he went on with a slight tone of mockery in his voice, “that my character requires further investigation before you can accept me for a brother-in-law?”