“Of what she spoke to the duke I can form only an estimate, Richard,” my Lord concluded, “but I’ll lay a fortune ’twas greatly to the point.  For in a little while Chartersea comes stumbling down the steps.  And he has never darkened the door since.  And the cream of it is,” said Comyn, “that her father gave me this himself, with a face a foot long, for me to sympathize.  The little beast has strange bursts of confidence.”

“And stranger confidants,” I ejaculated, thinking of the morning, and of Courtenay’s letter, long ago.

But the story had made my blood leap again with pride of her.  The picture in my mind had followed his every sentence, and even the very words she must have used were ringing in my ears.

Then, as we sat talking in low tones, the door opened, and a hearty voice cried out: 

“Now where is this rebel, this traitor?  They tell me one lies hid in this house.  ’Slife, I must have at him!”

“Mr. Fox!” I exclaimed.

He took my hands in his, and stood regarding me.

“For the convenience of my friends, I was christened Charles,” said he.

I stared at him in amazement.  He was grown a deal stouter, but my eye was caught and held by the blue coat and buff waistcoat he wore.  They were frayed and stained and shabby, yet they seemed all of a piece with some new grandeur come upon the man.

“Is all the world turning virtuous?  Is the millennium arrived?” I cried.

He smiled, with his old boyish smile.

“You think me changed some since that morning we drove together to Holland House—­do you remember it after the night at St. Stephen’s?”

“Remember it!” I repeated, with emphasis, “I’ll warrant I can give you every bit of our talk.”

“I have seen many men since, but never have I met your equal for a most damnable frankness, Richard Carvel.  Even Jack, here, is not half so blunt and uncompromising.  But you took my fancy—­God knows why!—­that first night I clapped eyes on you in Arlington Street, and I loved you when your simplicity made us that speech at Brooks’s Club.  So you have not forgotten that morning under the trees, when the dew was on the grass.  Faith, I am glad of it.  What children we were!” he said, and sighed.

“And yet you were a Junior Lord,” I said.

“Which is more than I am now,” he answered.  “Somehow—­you may laugh —­somehow I have never been able to shake off the influence of your words, Richard.  Your cursed earnestness scared me.”

“Scared you?” I cried, in astonishment.

“Just that,” said Charles.  “Jack will bear witness that I have said so to Dolly a score of times.  For I had never imagined such a single character as yours.  You know we were all of us rakes at fifteen, to whom everything good in the universe was a joke.  And do you recall the teamster we met by the Park, and how he arrested his salute when he saw who it was?  At another time I should have laughed over that, but it cut me to have it happen when you were along.”