ke in, trying to make up with emphasis for irrelevancy.
"And Madame considers me quite a grown-up person, I assure you."

"I suppose you are," he admitted, observing my inches with a worried
air. "I ought to have realized; but somehow or other I expected to find
a child."

"I shall be less bother to you than if I were a child," I consoled him.

This did make him smile again, for some reason, as he replied that he
wasn't sure. And we were starting to hook ourselves on to the tail end
of the dwindling procession, quite on friendly terms, when to my horror
that young English cadlet--or boundling, which you will--strolled calmly
out in front of us, and said, "How do you do, Sir Lionel Pendragon? I'm
afraid you don't remember me. Dick Burden. Anyhow, you'll recollect my
mother and aunt."

I had forgotten all about the creature, dearest; but there he had been
lurking, ready to pounce. And what bad luck that he should know
Ellaline's guardian, wasn't it?

At first I thought maybe he really had had business at the Gare de Lyon,
and that I'd partly misjudged him. And then it flashed into my head
that, on the contrary, he didn't really know Sir Lionel, but had
overheard the name, and was doing a "bluff" to get introduced to me.
Wasn't that a conceited idea? But neither was true. At least the latter
wasn't, I know, and I'm pretty sure the first wasn't. What I think, is
this: that he simply followed me to the Gare de Lyon for the "deviltry"
of the thing, and because he'd nothing better to do. That he hung about
in sheer curiosity, to see whom I was meeting; and that he recognized
the Dragon as an old acquaintance. I once fondly supposed coincidences
were remarkable and rare events, but I've known ever since I've known
the troubles of life that it's only agreeable ones which are rare, such
as coming across your long-lost millionaire-uncle who's decided to leave
you all his money, just as you'd made up your mind to commit suicide or
marry a Jewish diamond merchant. Disagreeable coincidences sit about on
damp clouds ready to fall on you the minute they think you don't expect
them, and they're more likely to occur than not. That's my experience.
Evidently the Dragon did remember Dick's mother and aunt, for the first
blankness of his expression brightened into intelligence with the
mention of the youth's female belongings. He held out his hand
cordially, and remarked that of course he remembered Mrs. Burden and
Mrs. Senter. As for