'And what did she say?'
'Come; that's tellings, Master Johnny. I took very good care to take it with me to the office this morning, for fear of accidents.'
But Eames was not so widely awake to the importance of his friend's adventures as he might have been had he not been weighted with adventures of his own.
'I shouldn't care so much,' said he, 'about that fellow Crosbie, going to a friend, as I should about his going to a police magistrate.'
'He'll put it in a friend's hands, of course,' said Cradell, with the air of a man who from experience was well up in such matters. 'And I suppose you'll naturally come to me. It's a deuced bore to a man in a public office, and all that kind of thing, of course. But I'm not the man to desert my friend. I'll stand by you, Johnny, my boy.'
'Oh, thank you,' said Eames, 'I don't think that I shall want that.'
'You must be ready with a friend, you know.'
'I should write down to a man I know in the country, and ask his advice,' said Eames; 'an older sort of friend, you know.'
'By Jove, old fellow, take care what you are about. Don't let them say of you that you show the white feather. Upon my honour, I'd sooner have anything said of me than that. I would, indeed,—anything.'
'I'm not afraid of that,' said Eames, with a touch of scorn in his voice. 'There isn't much thought about white feathers nowadays,—not in the way of fighting duels.'
After that, Cradell managed to carry back the conversation to Mrs Lupex and his own peculiar position, and as Eames did not care to ask from his companion further advice in his own matters, he listened nearly in silence till they reached Burton Crescent.
'I hope you found the noble earl well,' said Mrs Roper to him, as soon as they were all seated at dinner.
'I found the noble earl pretty well, thank you,' said Johnny.
It had become plainly understood by all the Roperites that Eames's position was quite altered since he had been honoured with the friendship of Lord De Guest. Mrs Lupex, next to whom he always sat at dinner, with a view to protecting her as it were from the dangerous neighbourhood of Cradell, treated him with a marked courtesy. Miss Spruce always called him 'sir.' Mrs Roper helped him the first of the gentlemen, and was mindful about his fat and gravy, and Amelia felt less able than she was before to insist upon the possession of his heart and affections. It must not be supposed that Amelia intended to abandon the fight, and allow the enemy to walk off with his forces; but she felt herself constrained to treat him with a deference that was hardly compatible with the perfect equality which should attend any union of hearts.
'It is such a privilege to be on visiting terms with the nobility,' said Mrs Lupex. 'When I was a girl, I used to be very intimate—'
'You ain't a girl any longer, and so you'd better not talk about it,' said Lupex. Mr Lupex had been at that little shop in Drury Lane after he came down from his scene-painting. 'My dear, you needn't be a brute to me before all Mrs Roper's company. If, led away by feelings which I will not now describe, I left my proper circles in marrying you, you need not before all the world teach me how much I have to regret.' And Mrs Lupex, putting down her knife and fork, applied her handkerchief to her eyes.
'That's pleasant for a man over his meal, isn't it?' said Lupex, appealing to Miss Spruce. 'I have plenty of that kind of thing, and you can't think how I like it.'
'Them whom God has joined together, let no man put asunder,' said Miss Spruce. 'As for me myself, I'm only an old woman.'
This little ebullition threw a gloom over the dinner-table, and nothing more was said on the occasion as to the glories of Eames's career. But, in the course of the evening, Amelia heard of the encounter which had taken place at the railway station, and at once perceived that she might use the occasion for her own purposes.
'John,' she whispered to her victim, finding an opportunity for coming upon him when almost alone, 'what is this I hear? I insist upon knowing. Are you going to fight a duel?'
'Nonsense,' said Johnny.
'But it is not nonsense. You don't know what my feelings will be, if I think that such a thing is going to happen. But then you are so hard-hearted!'
'I ain't hard-hearted a bit, and I'm not going to fight a duel.'
'But is it true that you beat Mr Crosbie at the station?'
