hand on Patrick,
asking him, 'What does it mean?'

Patrick fired his cannon-shot: 'She's married!' Consulting his feelings
immediately after, he hated himself for his bluntness.

Philip tossed his head. 'But why did you go down there?'

'I went,' said Patrick, 'well, I went . . . . I thought you looked
wretched, and I went with an idea of learning where she was, and seeing
if I couldn't do something. It's too late now; all's over.'

'My dear boy, I've worse than that to think of.'

'You don't mind it?'

'That's old news, Patrick.'

'You don't care for her any more, Philip?'

'You wouldn't have me caring for a married woman?'

'She has a perfect beast for a husband.'

'I'm sorry she didn't make a better choice.'

'He's a prince.'

'So I hear.'

'Ah! And what worse, Philip, can you be having to think of?'

'Affairs,' Philip replied, and made his way to the cabin of Captain Con,
followed in wonderment by Patrick, who would hardly have been his dupe to
suppose him indifferent and his love of Adiante dead, had not the thought
flashed on him a prospect of retaining the miniature for his own, or for
long in his custody.

CHAPTER IX

THE CAPTAIN'S CABIN

Patrick left his brother at the second flight of stairs to run and fling
on a shooting-jacket, into which he stuffed his treasure, after one peep
that eclipsed his little dream of being allowed to keep it; and so he saw
through Philip.

The captain's cabin was the crown of his house-top, a builder's addition
to the roof, where the detestable deeds he revelled in, calling them
liberty, could be practised, according to the convention, and no one save
rosy Mary, in her sense of smell, when she came upon her morning business
to clean and sweep, be any the wiser of them, because, as it is known to
the whole world, smoke ascends, and he was up among the chimneys. Here,
he would say to his friends and fellow-sinners, you can unfold, unbosom,
explode, do all you like, except caper, and there 's a small square of
lead between the tiles outside for that, if the spirit of the jig comes
upon you with violence, as I have had it on me, and eased myself mightily
there, to my own music; and the capital of the British Empire below me.
Here we take our indemnity for subjection to the tyrannical female ear,
and talk like copious rivers meandering at their own sweet will. Here we
roll like dogs in carrion, and no one to sniff at our coats. Here we sing
treason, here