announced gravely that dinner was served.
With the matter of that dinner it is doubtful if anybody but Cleek really enjoyed the hour spent in consuming it, and even he merely because the girl of his heart was beside him, and that would make a heaven with any healthy and well-conditioned man in the universe. But it was certain that nobody was deeply regretful when the end came, and Mrs. Raynor, rising, gave the hint to Miss Lorne that it was time to return to the drawing-room and to leave the gentlemen to their half hour with the coffee, the liqueurs, and the cigars. But to-night the General would have none of these.
"Young men to young men's pleasure, gentlemen. I'm an old fogy, and I'm sleepy," he said immediately after the ladies had retired. "Besides, my monthly copy of the Gardener and Fruit Grower arrived this evening, and I haven't looked at it yet. So, if you will excuse me, Mr. Barch——"
"My dear General, pray make no apologies," said Cleek, struggling between the necessity for keeping up his rakish attitude and the desire to be a man in the eyes of this rugged old soldier, who was fighting a braver battle now than he had ever fought in the days when king and country called him. "If a man may not consider his personal convenience in his own house, what's the good of saying that an Englishman's home is his castle?"
"Ah, we outlive old notions, Mr. Barch, we outlive them!" replied the General with a kindly smile and something that was like a smothered sigh. "Pray make yourself thoroughly at home, however. I hear from Harry that you have decided to honour us with a week's visit, and I am very greatly pleased. Hawkins, in the absence of Johnston, see that the gentlemen want for nothing."
"Very good, sir. Serve your coffee in your study, sir?"
"No, I shan't take any. See that I'm not disturbed; and don't bother to valet me to-night; I shall be reading late. Good-night, Harry; good-night, Mr. Barch." And with that he walked out of the room and left them.
"Now, then, Hawkins," said young Raynor as soon as his father was fairly out of sight and sound, "set the decanters and the glasses on the table here, and you and Hamer clear off about your business as fast as you can toddle. We don't need you. Hook it!"
"Very good, sir," replied Hawkins deferentially, and obeyed the order to the letter.
Harry Raynor waited a moment to give both time to leave the room and to get beyond earshot, then caught up a decanter, drew a glass toward him, and poured out a stiff peg of brandy.
"I say, Barch, I've got a flea to put into your ear," he said earnestly, "and I didn't want those blighters hanging round to hear it; that's the reason I packed them off as I did. I'm going to give you a shock that will set you thinking."
"Are you?" said Cleek with the utmost serenity. "Well, I'm going to give you one, too, dear boy; and as first horse at the post wins—I say, what price this little caper? How did you come by this, dear boy—and when?"
He dipped round and down into his coat-tail pocket, as he spoke, pulled out the scent bracelet, and laid it on the table before him.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
PICKING UP THREADS
Young Raynor was not in the smallest degree upset at sight of the thing. He was mildly surprised, and expressed it by a low, soft whistle as he reached out his hand and took up the bracelet.
"Well, of all the mutton heads! Shows what a thoughtless beggar I am!" he said with a slight lurch of the shoulders and an impatient twitch of the head. "No need to ask you how you came by the blessed thing, dear boy. Found it in the inside pocket of that coat you're wearing, I know. That's where I put the bally thing, I recollect. What an ass of me to forget all about it. Hope she won't think I've bagged it."
"She?" said Cleek, with admirable composure, considering that this open admission, this evidence of there being nothing to conceal, threatened to upset all his calculations. "Antecedent of that personal pronoun, please; who may the 'she' in question be?"
"Why, Mignon, of course."
"Mignon?"
"Yes, Mademoiselle Mignon De Varville, the famous Whirlwind Dancer of the Paris Variétés. You know her, or ought to, considering that you got a peep at her phiz in spite of me this afternoon."
"Not 'Pink Gauze'? The lady of the tobacco jar?"
"The very identical. Little bit of all right, that—eh, what?"
"Looked like it, at all events," said Cleek, selecting a cigar and lighting up. "What a lucky beggar you are, dear chap—all the good things seem to go your way. And so"—puff! puff!—"Pink Gauze gave you the bracelet, eh? When? Last night? Or didn't you see her then?"
"Oh, I saw her last night, right enough; in fact, I've seen her pretty nearly every night since she came over from Paris, but she didn't give me the bracelet to take care of then. That was on the night before—over at her little place, you know."
"No, I'm blest if I do. How should I? Never saw or heard of her, dear boy, till I had the misfortune to break that tobacco jar and tumble out her photo. So her name's Mignon de Varville, is it? And she's got a little place of her own, eh? Where? In this neighbourhood?"
"Lord, no! Beyond Wimbledon. Rippin' little place, too. Clinkin' little house standing in its own grounds and fitted up to the nines. Took it furnished, and gives the rippin'est suppers and the jolliest dances going. Hot stuff, I give you my word. Brought over her entire troupe with her. Rehearsing now, and with all their evenings to themselves. Going to open in London in a fortnight's time, she says, and no English hotels for her and her little lot. There are ten of 'em: five spiffin' pretty girls, and five of the most awful-lookin' Johnnies you ever saw in evening clothes since the hour you were christened. Coarse as dog's hair, every mother's son of 'em, but clinkin' good chaps, for all that. Plenty of champagne, and jolly good champagne it is, too, dear boy; and after supper there's always a dance, two of the chaps and two of the girls sitting out and furnishing the music. And Lord, you don't know what a dance is, Barch, till you've had one with Mignon de Varville, my boy!"
Cleek did not dispute the assertion. He had had many with the lady in those old days that lay forever behind; and it needed no man's word to tell him how tirelessly, how joyously, and with what mad abandon Margot could dance when the fever of music and wine got into her blood.
"My hat! I'll be choking you from sheer jealousy, presently, you lucky beggar!" he said enviously. "All the plums seem to fall over on your side of the wall, dash you! and here am I sitting solitary and alone in a howling wilderness with not even one. I say, how the dickens did you ever come across this French lot? Blest if I can seem to meet with any—French, English, or any other sort, dash it! Where did you meet the charming Mignon? In Paris?"
"No fear! You can fall in with anything going in London if you only know the ropes, dear boy, and are popular. Flossie Twinkletoes introduced me to her. She'd just come over from Paris, and Flossie was out of work through the failure of 'The Seaside Girl,' and asked me to take her to supper and meet a friend of hers. I did—and the friend was Mignon. After that—well, you know how it is, dear boy. When a fellow knows his way about women will run after him. Mignon and I took to each other from the first, and we've been jolly good pals ever since. Invited me to her place before we'd known each other half an hour. Fact, dear boy. And she's rather exclusive, too, I can tell you. Just
