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He had strayed into Faery somehow into Atlantis, or Avalon, or "a wood near Athens," into a land of opalescence and vapor and delicate color, that would vanish, bubble-like, at the discreet tap of Pawsey fetching in his shaving-water; meantime John Bulmer's memory snatched at each loveliness, jealously, as a pug snatches bits of sugar. Beneath her window he paused and shifted his lute before him.
Somehow, the comment on the broken glass seemed to deprive "owd Dickey Bulmer's" personality of its real menace. "I'm sorry," she said, and stooped to pick up the fragments scattered over the carpet. "Leave that alone," came the sharp order. "So long as I've the brass to pay for 'em, there's plenty more where that kem from, an' in any case, it's the 'ousemaid's job. Leave it alone, I tell you!
Dickey Bulmer's goin' to marry my niece, an' 'e 'as pledged himself to double the capital of the firm. Now I've let the cat out of the bag. I'm sorry, ole man pon me soul, I am but w'en Dickey's name crops up on 'Change you know as well as me 'ow many captain's tickets will be backed wi' t' brass."
"O Mother of God!" said the Dominican, in profound disgust; "I cannot marry two maniacs." But, in view of John Bulmer's sword and pistol, he went through the ceremony without further protest. And something embryonic in John Bulmer seemed to come, with the knave's benediction, into flowerage.
It was Horne Fisher, and he was talking as easily and idly about everything as he always did. His companion was a more striking, and even more sinister, figure, and he had the added importance of being Lord Bulmer's oldest and most intimate friend. He was generally known with a severe simplicity as Mr.
Yet farther off a Dominican Friar sat upon a stone and displayed rather more unctuous amusement. Three horses and a mule diversified the background. All in all, a thought larger than life, a shade too obviously posed, a sign-painter's notion of a heroic picture, was John Bulmer's verdict. From his holster he drew a pistol. The lesser rascal rose from the prostrate woman.
"Mr. Bulmer, I can assure you that I was never more delighted to see anyone in my entire life." "Pardon, monseigneur," one of the attendants here put in, "but what shall we do with this Achon?" The Marquis slightly turned his head, his hand still grasping John Bulmer's. "Why, hang him, of course," he said. "Did I forget to tell you?
Now let us get down to our affair." They crossed blades in the moonlight, Cazaio was in a disastrous condition; John Bulmer's tolerant acceptance of any meanness that a Cazaio might attempt, the vital shame of this new and baser failure before Claire's very eyes, had made of Cazaio a crazed beast.
He had thoughts on the border of thought; fancies about a fourth dimension which was itself a hole to hide anything, of seeing everything from a new angle out of a new window in the senses; or of some mystical light and transparency, like the new rays of chemistry, in which he could see Bulmer's body, horrible and glaring, floating in a lurid halo over the woods and the wall.
Now, he must rush the wedding. Dickey Bulmer's Lancashire canniness might stipulate for cash on delivery as the essence of the marriage contract. Not a penny would the old miser part with until he was sure of the girl. So David Verity, having much to occupy his mind, lingered over the second glass of port, for this was a Sunday dinner, served at mid-day.
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