Great beads of sweat stood on Black’s face, but his features were under perfect control. Fear and rage glowed in his eyes, but he met the other’s gaze defiantly. He smiled even—a slow, laboured smile.
“That puts an end to any objection,” he said almost gaily.
The old man took his leave and was grinning to himself all the way back to town.
The Earl of Verlond was a stickler for punctuality: a grim, bent old man, with a face that, so Society said, told eloquently the story of his life, his bitter tongue was sufficient to maintain for him the respect—or if not the respect, the fear that so ably substitutes respect—of his friends.
“Friends” is a word which you would never ordinarily apply to any of the earl’s acquaintances. He had apparently no friends save Sir Isaac Tramber.
“I have people to dine with me,” he had said cynically when this question of friendship was once discussed by one who knew him sufficiently well to deal with so intimate a subject.
That night he was waiting in the big library of Carnarvon Place. The earl was one of those men who observed a rigid timetable every day of his life.
He glanced at his watch; in two minutes he would be on his way to the drawing-room to receive his guests.
Horace Gresham was coming. A curious invitation, Sir Isaac Tramber had thought, and had ventured to remark as much, presuming his friendship.
“When I want your advice as to my invitation list, Ikey,” said the earl, “I will send you a prepaid telegram.”
“I thought you hated him,” grumbled Sir Isaac.
“Hate him! Of course I hate him. I hate everybody. I should hate you, but you are such an insignificant devil,” said the earl. “Have you made your peace with Mary?”
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘making my peace,’ ” said Sir Isaac complainingly. “I tried to be amiable to her, and I only seemed to succeed in making a fool of myself.”
“Ah!” said the nobleman with a little chuckle, “she would like you best natural.”
Sir Isaac shot a scowling glance at his patron.
“I suppose you know,” he said, “that I want to marry Mary.”
“I know that you want some money without working for it,” said the earl. “You have told me about it twice. I am not likely to forget it. It is the sort of thing I think about at nights.”
“I wish you wouldn’t pull my leg,” growled the baronet. “Are you waiting for any other guests?”
“No,” snarled the earl, “I am sitting on the top of Mont Blanc eating rice pudding.”
There was no retort to this.
“I’ve invited quite an old friend of yours,” said the earl suddenly, “but it doesn’t look as if he was turning up.”
Ikey frowned.
“Old friend?”
The other nodded. “Military gent,” he said laconically. “A colonel in the army, though nobody knows the army.”
Sir Isaac’s jaw dropped.
“Not Black?”
Lord Verlond nodded. He nodded several times, like a gleeful child confessing a fault of which it was inordinately proud.
“Black it is,” he said, but made no mention of the girl.
He looked at his watch again and pulled a little face.
“Stay here,” he commanded. “I’m going to telephone.”
“Can I—”
“You can’t!” snapped the earl.
He was gone some time, and when he returned to the library there was a smile on his face.
“Your pal’s not coming,” he said, and offered no explanation either for the inexplicable behaviour of the colonel or for his amusement.
At dinner Horace Gresham found himself seated next to the most lovely woman in the world. She was also the kindest and the easiest to amuse. He was content to forget the world, and such of the world who were gathered about the earl, but Lord Verlond had other views.
“Met a friend of yours today,” he said abruptly and addressing Horace.
“Indeed, sir?” The young man was politely interested.
“Sandford—that terribly prosperous gentleman from Newcastle.”
Horace nodded cautiously.
“Friend of yours too, ain’t he?” The old man turned swiftly to Sir Isaac. “I asked his daughter to come to dinner—father couldn’t come. She ain’t here.”
He glared round the table for the absent girl.
“In a sense Sandford is a friend of mine,” said Sir Isaac no less cautiously, since he must make a statement in public without exactly knowing how the elder man felt on the subject of the absent guests; “at least, he’s a friend of a friend.”
“Black,” snarled Lord Verlond, “bucket-shop swindler—are you in it?”
“I have practically severed my connection with him,” Sir Isaac hastened to say.
Verlond grinned.
“That means he’s broke,” he said, and turned to Horace. “Sandford’s full of praise for a policeman who’s mad keen on his girl—friend of yours?”
Horace nodded.
“He’s a great friend of mine,” he said quietly.
“Who is he?”
“Oh, he’s a policeman,” said Horace.
“And I suppose he’s got two legs and a head and a pair of arms,” said the earl. “You’re too full of information—I know he’s a policeman. Everybody seems to be talking about him. Now, what does he do, where does he come from—what the devil does it all mean?”
“I’m afraid I can’t give you any information,” said Horace. “The only thing that I am absolutely certain about in my own mind is that he is a gentleman.”
“A gentleman and a policeman?” asked the earl incredulously.
Horace nodded.
“A new profession for the younger son, eh?” remarked Lord Verlond sardonically. “No more running away and joining the army; no more serving before the mast; no more cow-punching on the pampas—”
A look of pain came into Lady Mary’s eyes. The old lord swung round on her.
“Sorry” he growled. “I wasn’t thinking of that young fool. No more dashing away to the ends of the earth for the younger son; no dying picturesquely in the Cape Mounted Rifles, or turning up at an appropriate hour with a bag of bullion under each arm to save the family from ruin. Join the police force, that’s the game. You ought to write a novel about that: a man who can write letters to the sporting papers can write anything.”
“By the way,” he added, “I am coming
