“Where?  When did you see him last?”

“We’re going too quickly, old girl.  The question is, When did you see him last?”

“Ah! you’d like to know, wouldn’t you?”

Gammon burst out laughing, ever the surest way of baffling a silly woman.  Polly grew hot with anger, then subsided into mortification.  She knew the weakness of her position, and inclined ever more to make an ally of the man who had overcome her in battle and carried her off in his arms.

“And the other question is,” Gammon proceeded, as if enjoying a huge joke, “When did you see him first?”

“I suppose you know?” she murmured reluctantly.

“Let us suppose I do.  And suppose I am trying to make up my mind about the best way of dealing with the little affair.  As I told you, I wish Mrs. Clover didn’t know about it; but that’s your doing.  Our friend, Mr. C., wouldn’t thank you.”

“He knows, then, does he?” cried Polly.

“Mr. C. knows a great many things, my dear.  He was not born yesterday.  Now, see here, Polly.  We’re both of us in this, and we’d better be straight with each other.  I am no friend of Mr. C., but I am a friend of yours, and if you can help me to get a bit tighter hold of him—­Yes, yes, I’ll tell you presently.  The question is, Whether I can depend upon what he says?  Of course, I know all about you; I want to know more about him.  Now, is it true that you saw him first at the theatre?”

Polly nodded, and Gammon congratulated himself on his guess.

“And—­he wasn’t alone?”

“No.”

“Just what I thought.”

“He says he was alone—­eh?” asked Polly with eagerness.

“I guess why.  Now who was with him, old girl?”

A moment’s sulky hesitation and Polly threw away all reserve.

“There was two ladies—­if they were ladies; at all events, they was dressed like it.  Oldish, both of ’em.  One was a foreigner.  I know that because I heard her speak; and it wasn’t English.  The other one spoke back to her in the same way, but I heard her speak English too.  And she was the one as sat next to him.”

“Good, Polly, we’re getting on.  And how did you notice him?”

“Well, it was like this,” she began to narrate with vivacity.  “I offered him a programme—­see?—­and he gave me half a sovereign and looked up at me, as much as to say he’d like change.  And I’d no sooner met his eyes than I knew him.  How could I help?  He don’t look to have changed a bit.  And I saw as he knew me.  I saw it by a queer sort of wink he give.  And then he looked at me frightened like—­ didn’t he just!  Of course, I didn’t say nothing, but I kept standing by him a minute or two.  And I’d forgot all about the change till he said to me, with a sort of look, ‘You may keep that,’ he said, and I says, ‘Thank you, sir,’ and nearly laughed.”

“Not a bad tip, eh, Polly?”

“Oh, I’ve had as good before,” she replied, with a brief return to the old manner.