rent to the inviolate claims
of the sex as if he had been an old man of ninety.

"Did Miss Westerfield say anything about me?" was his next question.

Slippery Mr. Sarrazin slid into another refuge: he entered a protest.

"Here is a change of persons and places!" he exclaimed. "Am I a witness
of the court of justice--and are you the lawyer who examines me? My
memory is defective, my learned friend. _Non mi ricordo._ I know nothing
about it."

Randal changed his tone. "We have amused ourselves long enough," he
said. "I have serious reasons, Sarrazin, for wishing to know what passed
between Miss Westerfield and you--and I trust my old friend to relieve
my anxiety."

The lawyer was accustomed to say of himself that he never did things by
halves. His answer to Randal offered a proof of his accurate estimate of
his own character.

"Your old friend will deserve your confidence in him," he answered. "You
want to know why Miss Westerfield called here. Her object in view was
to twist me round her finger--and I beg to inform you that she has
completely succeeded. My dear Randal, this pretty creature's cunning is
remarkable even for a woman. I am an old lawyer, skilled in the ways
of the world--and a young girl has completely overreached me. She
asked--oh, heavens, how innocently!--if Mrs. Norman was likely to make a
long stay at her present place of residence."

Randal interrupted him. "You don't mean to tell me you have given her
Catherine's address?"

"Buck's Hotel, Sydenham," Mr. Sarrazin answered. "She has got the
address down in her nice little pocketbook."

"What amazing weakness!" Randal exclaimed.

Mr. Sarrazin cordially agreed with him. "Amazing weakness, as you say.
Pretty Miss Sydney has extracted more things, besides the address. She
knows that Mrs. Norman is here on business relating to new investments
of her money. She knows besides that one of the trustees is keeping us
waiting. She also made sensible remarks. She mentioned having heard Mrs.
Norman say that the air of London never agreed with her; and she hoped
that a comparatively healthy neighborhood had been chosen for Mrs.
Norman's place of residence. This, you see, was leading up to the
discovery of the address. The spirit of mischief possessed me; I allowed
Miss Westerfield to take a little peep at the truth. 'Mrs. Norman is not
actually in London,' I said; 'she is only in the neighborhood.' For what
followed on this, my experience of ladies ought