two ladies heard it and glanced at her curiously. Then they looked at each other with the slightest uplifting of the eyebrow, which meant, "Who on earth can she be?"
Mrs. Cassilis noted that too, and rejoiced, because she was going to bring forward a girl who would make everybody jealous.
Ladds was the only one who spoke.
"That," he said feebly, "must be very jolly."
He began to wonder what could be the reason of this singular educational omission. Perhaps she had a crooked back; could not sit up to a desk, could not hold a book in her hand; but no, she was like Petruchio's Kate:
"Like the hazel twig.
As straight and slender."
Perhaps her eyes were weak; but no, her eyes were sparkling with the "right Promethean fire." Perhaps she was of weak intellect; but that was ridiculous.
Then the lady who had read the book began to ask more questions. I do not know anything more irritating than to be asked questions about your own book.
"Will you tell us, Mr. Dunquerque, if the story of the bear-hunt is a true one, or did you make it up?"
"We made up nothing. That story is perfectly true. And the man's name was Beck."
"Curious," said Mr. Cassilis. "An American named Beck, Mr. Gilead P. Beck, is in London now, and has been recommended to me. He is extremely rich. I think, my dear, that you invited him to dinner to-day?'
"Yes. He found he could not come at the last moment. He will be here in the evening."
"Then you will see the very man," said Jack, "unless there is more than one Gilead P. Beck, which is hardly likely."
"This man has practically an unlimited credit," said the host.
"And talks, I suppose, like, well, like the stage Americans, I suppose," said his wife.
"You know," Jack explained, "that the stage American is all nonsense. The educated American talks a great deal better than we do. He can string his sentences together; we can only bark."
"Perhaps our bark is better than their bite," Ladds remarked.
"A man who has unlimited credit may talk as he pleases," said Mr. Cassilis dogmatically.
The two solemn young men murmured assent.
"And he always did say that he was going to have luck. He carried about a Golden Butterfly in a box."
"How deeply interesting!" replied the lady who had read the book. "And is that other story true, that you found an English traveller living all alone in a deserted city?"
"Quite true."
"Really. And who was it? Anybody one has met?"
"I do not know whether you have ever met him. His name is Lawrence Colquhoun."
Mrs. Cassilis flushed suddenly, and then her pale face became paler.
"Lawrence Colquhoun, formerly of ours," said Ladds, looking at her.
Mrs. Cassilis read the look to ask what business it was of hers, and why she changed colour at his name.
"Colquhoun!" she said softly. Then she raised her voice and addressed her husband: "My dear, it is an old friend of mine of whom we are speaking, Mr. Lawrence Colquhoun."
"Yes!" he had forgotten the name. "What did he do? I think I remember – " He stopped, for he remembered to have heard his wife's name in connection with this man. He felt a sudden pang of jealousy, a quite new and rather curious sensation. It passed, but yet he rejoiced that the man was out of England.
"He is my guardian," Phillis said to Ladds. "And you actually know him? Will you tell me something about him presently?"
When the men followed, half an hour later, they found the four ladies sitting in a large semi-circle round the fire. The centre of the space so formed was occupied by a gentleman who held a cup of tea in one hand and declaimed with the other. That is to say, he was speaking in measured tones, and as if he were addressing a large room instead of four ladies: and his right hand and arm performed a pump-handle movement to assist and grace his delivery. He had a face so grave that it seemed as if smiles were impossible; he was apparently about forty years of age. Mrs. Cassilis was not listening much. She was considering, as she looked at her visitor, how far he might be useful to her evenings. Phillis was catching every word that fell from the stranger's lips. Here was an experience quite new and startling. She knew of America; Mr. Dyson, born not so very many years after the War of Independence, and while the memory of its humiliations was fresh in the mind of the nation, always thought and spoke of Americans as England's hereditary and implacable enemies. Yet here was one of the race talking amicably, and making no hostile demonstrations whatever. So that another of her collection of early impressions evidently needed reconsideration.
When he saw the group at the door, Mr. Gilead Beck – for it was he – strode hastily across the room, and putting aside Mr. Cassilis, seized Jack Dunquerque by the hand and wrung it for several moments.
"You have not forgotten me!" he said. "You remember that lucky shot? You still think of that Grisly?"
"Of course I do," said Jack; "I shall never forget him."
"Nor shall I, sir; never." And then he went through the friendly ceremony with Ladds.
"You are the other man, sir?"
"I always am the other man," said Ladds, for the second time that evening. "How are you, Mr. Beck, and how is the Golden Butterfly?"
"That Inseck, captain, is a special instrument working under Providence for my welfare. He slumbers at my hotel, the Langham, in a fire-proof safe."
Then he seized Jack Dunquerque's arm, and led him to the circle round the fire.
"Ladies, this young gentleman is my preserver. He saved my life. It is owing to Mr. Dunquerque that Gilead P. Beck has the pleasure of being in this drawing-room."
"O Mr. Dunquerque," said the lady who had read the book, "that is not in the volume!"
"Clawed I should have been, mauled I should have been, rubbed out I should have been, on that green and grassy spot, but for the crack of Mr. Dunquerque's rifle. You will not believe me, ladies, but I thought it was the crack of doom."
"It was a most charming, picturesque spot in which to be clawed," said Jack, laughing. "You could not have selected a more delightful place for the purpose."
"There air moments," said Mr. Beck, looking round the room solemnly, and letting his eyes rest on Phillis, who gazed at him with an excitement and interest she could hardly control – "there air moments when the soul is dead to poetry. One of those moments is when you feel the breath of a Grisly on your cheek. Even you, young lady, would, at such a moment, lose your interest in the beauty of Nature."
Phillis started when he addressed her.
"Did he save your life?" she asked, with flashing eyes.
Jack Dunquerque blushed as this fair creature turned to him with looks of such admiration and respect as the queen of the tournament bestowed upon the victor of the fight. So Desdemona gazed upon the Moor when he spake
"Of
