breakfast, but he was ready to
go off at once, supperless, if there were a train to carry him.
Unluckily there was no train. The mail had started. Nothing till seven
o'clock next morning.

'Eat your supper, old fellow,' said Maulevrier. 'After all, the danger
may not be so desperate as I fancied this morning. Slander is the
favourite amusement of the age we live in. We must allow a margin for
exaggeration.'

'A very liberal margin,' answered Hartfield. 'No doubt the man who
warned you meant honestly, but this scandal may have grown out of the
merest trifles. The feebleness of the Masher's brain is only exceeded by
the foulness of the Masher's tongue. I daresay this rumour about Lady
Lesbia has its beginning and end among the Masher species.'

'I hope so, but--I have seen those two together--I met them at Victoria
one evening after Goodwood. Old Kirkbank was shuffling on ahead,
carrying Smithson with her, absorbing his attention by fussification
about her carriage. Lesbia and that Cuban devil were in the rear. They
looked as if they had all the world to themselves. Faust and Marguerite
in the garden were not in it for the expression of intense absorbing
feeling compared with those two. I'm not an intellectual party, but I
know something of human nature, and I know when a man and woman are in
love with each other. It is one of the things that never has been, that
never can be hidden.'

'And you say this Montesma is a dangerous man?'

'Deadly.'

'Well, we must lose no time. When we are on the spot it will be easy to
find out the truth; and it will be your duty, if there be danger, to
warn Lesbia and her future husband.

'I would much rather shoot the Cuban,' said Maulevrier. 'I never knew
much good come of a warning in such a case: it generally precipitates
matters. If I could play _ecarte_ with him at the club, find him
sporting an extra king, throw my cards in his face, and accept his
challenge for an exchange of shots on the sands beyond Cherbourg--there
would be something like satisfaction'

'You say the man is a gambler?'

'Report says something worse of him. Report says he is a cheat.'

'We must not be dependent upon society gossip,' replied Lord Hartfield.
'I have an idea, Maulevrier. The more we know about this man--Montesma,
I think you called him----'

'Gomez de Montesma.'

'The more fully we are acquainted with Don Gomez de Montesma's
antecedents the better we shall be able to cope with him, if w