The Claverings

a certain person on my behalf, and you have not done so. Twice he has been here. Once I was in truth out. He came again the next evening at nine, and I was then ill, and had gone to bed. You understand it all, and must know how this annoys me. I thought you would hae done this for me, and I thought I should have seen you.⁠—J.” This note he found at his lodgings when he returned home at night, and on the following morning he went in his despair direct to Mount Street, on his way to the Adelphi. It was not yet ten o’clock when he was shown into Madame Gordeloup’s presence, and as regarded her dress he did not find her to be quite prepared for morning visitors. But he might well be indifferent on that matter, as the lady seemed to disregard the circumstances altogether. On her head she wore what he took to be a nightcap, though I will not absolutely undertake to say that she had slept in that very headdress. There were frills to it, and a certain attempt at prettinesses had been made; but then the attempt had been made so long ago, and the frills were so ignorant of starch and all frillish propensities, that it hardly could pretend to decency. A great white wrapper she also wore, which might not have been objectionable had it not been so long worn that it looked like a university college surplice at the end of the long vacation. Her slippers had all the ease which age could give them, and above the slippers, neatness, to say the least of it, did not predominate. But Sophie herself seemed to be quite at her ease in spite of these deficiencies, and received our hero with an eager, pointed welcome, which I can hardly describe as affectionate, and which Harry did not at all understand.

“I have to apologize for troubling you,” he began.

“Trouble, what trouble? Bah! You give me no trouble. It is you have the trouble to come here. You come early and I have not got my crinoline. If you are contented, so am I.” Then she smiled, and sat herself down suddenly, letting herself almost fall into her special corner in the sofa. “Take a chair, Mr. Harry; then we can talk more comfortable.”

“I want especially to see your brother. Can you give me his address?”

“What? Edouard⁠—certainly; Travellers’ Club.”

“But he is never there.”

“He sends every day for his letters. You want to see him. Why?”

Harry was at once confounded, having no answer. “A little private business,” he said.

“Ah; a little private business. You do not owe him a little money, I am afraid, or you would not want to see him. Ha, ha! You write to him, and he will see you. There;⁠—there is paper and pen and ink. He shall get your letter this day.”

Harry, nothing suspicious, did as he was bid, and wrote a note in which he simply told the count that he was specially desirous of seeing him.

“I will go to you anywhere,” said Harry, “if you will name a place.”

We, knowing Madame Gordeloup’s habits, may feel little doubt but that she thought it her duty to become acquainted with the contents of the note before she sent it out of her house, but we may also know that she learned very little from it.

“It shall go, almost immediately,” said Sophie, when the envelope was closed.

Then Harry got up to depart, having done his work. “What, you are going in that way at once? You are in a hurry?”

“Well, yes; I am in a hurry, rather, Madame Gordeloup. I have got to be at my office, and I only just came up here to find out your brother’s address.” Then he rose and went, leaving the note behind him.

Then Madame Gordeloup, speaking to herself in French, called Harry Clavering a lout, a fool, an awkward overgrown boy, and a pig. She declared him to be a pig nine times over, then shook herself in violent disgust, and after that betook herself to the letter.

The letter was at any rate duly sent to the count, for before Harry had left Mr. Beilby’s chambers on that day, Pateroff came to him there. Harry sat in the same room with other men, and therefore went out to see his acquaintance in a little antechamber that was used for such purposes. As he walked from one room to the other, he was conscious of the delicacy and difficulty of the task before him, and the colour was high in his face as he opened the door. But when he had done so, he saw that the count was not alone. A gentleman was with him, whom he did not introduce to Harry, and before whom Harry could not say that which he had to communicate.

“Pardon me,” said the count, “but we are in railroad hurry. Nobody ever was in such a haste as I and my friend. You are not engaged tomorrow? No, I see. You dine with me and my friend at the Blue Posts. You know the Blue Posts?”

Harry said he did not know the Blue Posts.

“Then you shall know the Blue Posts. I will be your instructor. You drink claret. Come and see. You eat beefsteaks. Come and try. You love one glass of port wine with your cheese. No. But you shall love it when you have dined with me at the Blue Posts. We will dine altogether after the English way;⁠—which is the best way in the world when it is quite good. It is quite good at the Blue Posts;⁠—quite good! Seven o’clock. You are fined when a minute late; an extra glass of port wine a minute. Now I must go. Ah; yes. I am ruined already.”

Then Count Pateroff, holding his watch in his hand, bolted out of the room before Harry could say a word to him.

He had nothing for it but