has_ dropped--on
me, and really I do think that you, who I understand were the
means--of course from the best possible motives--of exposing me as a
designing villain, might give me an opportunity of defending myself. I
took the liberty of getting Fladgate to bring us together, expressly
because I can't be comfortable while I know you have your present
impressions of me. I don't expect to persuade Miss Langton to have a
little charity--she's a woman; but I hoped you at least would give me
a hearing.'

Mark felt some of his prejudice leaving him already; Caffyn had not
the air of a man who had been detected in a course of secret tyranny.
There was something flattering, too, in his evident wish to recover
Mark's good opinion; he certainly ought to hear both sides before
judging so harshly. Perhaps, after all, they had been making a little
too much of this business. 'Well,' he said at last, 'I should be very
glad if I could think things were not as bad as they seem. I will hear
anything you would like to say about it.'

'Quite the high moral censor,' thought the other savagely. 'Confound
his condescension!'

'I was sure you would give me a chance of putting myself right,' he
said, 'but I can't do it now. They're going down to dinner; we will
talk it over afterwards.'

At dinner conversation was lively and well sustained, though perhaps
not quite so sparkling as might have been expected from such an
assembly. As a rule, those who talked most and best were the men who
still had their reputation to make, and many of the great men there
seemed content to expose themselves to such brilliancy as there was
around them, as if silently absorbing it for future reproduction, by
some process analogous to the action of luminous paint.

Caffyn was placed at some distance from Mark, and as, after dinner, he
was entreated to sit down to the piano, which stood in a corner of the
room to which they had adjourned for cigars and coffee, it was some
time before their conversation was resumed.

Caffyn was at his best as he sat there rippling out snatches of
operatic _morceaux_, and turning round with a smile to know if they
were recognised. His performance was not remarkable for accuracy, as
he had never troubled himself to study music, or anything else,
seriously, but it was effective enough with a non-critical audience;
his voice, too, when he sang, though scarcely strong enough to fill a
room of much larger size, was pleasant and not