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But before we come to close quarters, as you say in England, I wish to know whether the argument is to be conducted on lines that befit gentlemen. On the last occasion when we differed, you used the methods of the costermonger." "They served their purpose," said Medenham, annoyed at finding the Frenchman's coolness rather disconcerting.
"What is her husband?" "She married rather well, as the saying is. Her husband is a man named Scarland, and he is chiefly interested in pedigree cattle." "Let me see," she mused. "I seem to remember the name; it had something to do with fat cattle, too.... Scarland? Does he exhibit?" Medenham wished then that he had not been so glib with the Marquis of Scarland's pet occupation.
"Or elsewhere?" she gasped, though some of her high color fled under his cold glance. "Precisely. I do not intend to abandon Miss Vanrenen." "How dare you speak to me in this manner, you vulgar person?" For answer Medenham set the engine going. "I said 'At once," he replied, and looked Mrs. Devar squarely in the eyes.
Cynthia poured out a cup of tea, heaped a plate with cakes and bread and butter, and gave some instructions to the waitress. Medenham knew what that meant. He hurried back by the way he had come, and found that Marigny's chauffeur had lifted the bonnet off the Mercury.
Devar, rapidly regaining her spirits after enduring long hours of the horrible obsession that Medenham had run off with her heiress, noted that telltale blush. At present her object was to assist rather than embarrass, so with a fine air of motherly solicitude she asked: "Where did you leave Fitzroy?" "He saw preparations being made to send boats in search of us, and he went to stop them.
He pestered Cynthia with inquiries as to the exact dates when her father would be in London, and Medenham did not hesitate to cut short the banker's awkward gallantries by throwing the Mercury into her stride with a whirl. "By Jove, Ducrot," said someone, "your pretty friend's car jumped off like a gee-gee under the starting gate."
Fairholme, by no means a hasty man in the ordinary affairs of life, and only upset now by the unforeseen annoyances of an unusually disquieting mission, realized that he was losing caste. It was a novel experience to be rebuked by a chauffeur, but he had the sense to swallow his wrath. "Perhaps I ought to explain that I am particularly anxious to see Lord Medenham," he said more calmly.
Medenham borrowed it because of the intolerable heat of the leather jacket. Its distinctive character became visible when he viewed it in the June sunshine, and he wore it as a substitute for sackcloth, since he, no less than Cynthia, recognized that a dangerous acquaintance was drawing to an end.
Simmonds, no courtier, grinned broadly, and even Dale winked at the North Star; Medenham had steeled himself against such manifestations of crude opinion his face was impassive as that of a graven image. "Of course I'll oblige you in that way, my lord. Who wouldn't?" came the slow reply.
The old gentleman had only that minute alighted from a station cab, and a question he addressed to the hall-porter led that civil functionary to refer him to Marigny "as a friend of the parties concerned." But the newcomer drew himself up somewhat stiffly when the foreign personage spoke of Medenham as a "puppy."
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