h that you kindly brought for my
guidance. I ought to have mentioned, perhaps, that I once had the honour
of being engaged to her--until you (no doubt from the highest motives)
invested my little gift of song with a flavour of unromantic ridicule.
That ridicule I am now enabled to repay, with interest calculated up to
the present date.'

'So you are Iris's poet!' I burst out, for, somehow, I had not
completely identified him till that moment. 'You scoundrel! do you think
I shall allow you to circulate those atrocious caricatures with
impunity? No, by heavens! my solicitor shall----'

'I rely upon the document you were kind enough to furnish,' he said
quietly. 'I fear that any legal proceedings you may resort to will
hardly avert the publicity you seem to fear. Allow me to unfasten the
door. Good-bye; mind the step on the first landing. Might I beg you to
recommend me amongst your friends?'

I went out without another word; he was mad, of course, or he would not
have devised so outrageous a revenge for a fancied injury, but he was
cunning enough to be my match. I knew too well that if I took any legal
measures, he would contrive to shift the whole burden of lunacy upon
_me_. I dared not court an inquiry for many reasons, and so I was
compelled to pass over this unparalleled outrage in silence.

Iris made frequent inquiries after the promised photograph, and I had to
parry them as well as I could--which was a mistake in judgment on my
part, for one afternoon while I was actually sitting with her, a packet
arrived addressed to Miss Waverley.

I did not suspect what it might contain until it was too late. She
recognised that photographs were inside the wrappings, which she tore
open with a cry of rapture--and then!

She had a short fainting fit when she saw the Gainsborough hat, and as
soon as she revived, the extraordinary appearance I presented upside
down on the mast sent her into violent hysterics. By the time she was in
a condition to look at the equestrian portraits she had grown cold and
hard as marble. 'Go,' she said, indicating the door, 'I see I have been
wasting my affection upon a vulgar and heartless buffoon!'

I went--for she would listen to no explanations; and indeed I doubt
whether, even were she to come upon this statement, it would serve to
restore my tarnished ideal in her estimation. But, though I have lost
her, I am naturally anxious (as I said when I began) that the public
should not be misled