nickname, my dear.

AGNES. [Turning sharply.] Ho! So you've heard that, have you?

ST. OLPHERTS. Oh, yes.

AGNES. Mad--Agnes? [He bows deprecatingly.] We appear to have studied
each other's history pretty closely.

ST. OLPHERTS. Dear lady, this is not the first time the same roof has
covered us.

AGNES. No?

ST. OLPHERTS. Five years ago, on a broiling night in July, I joined a
party of men who made an excursion from a club-house in St James's
Street to the unsavoury district of St. Luke's.

AGNES. Oh, yes.

ST. OLPHERTS. A depressin' building; the Iron Hall, Barker
Street--no--Carter Street.

AGNES. Precisely.

ST. OLPHERTS. We took our places amongst a handful of frowsy folks who
cracked nuts and blasphemed. On the platform stood a gaunt, white-faced
young lady resolutely engaged in making up by extravagance of gesture
for the deficiencies of an exhausted voice. "There," said one of my
companions, "that is the notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith." Upon which a person
near us, whom I judged from his air of leaden laziness to be a British
working man, blurted out, "Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith! Mad Agnes! That's
the name her sanguinary friends give her--Mad Agnes!" At that moment
the eye of the panting oratress caught mine for an instant, and you and
I first met.

AGNES. [Passing her hand across her brow, thoughtfully.]
Mad--Agnes . . . [To him, with a grim smile.] We have both been
criticised, in our time, pretty sharply, eh, Duke?

ST. OLPHERTS. Yes. Let that reflection make you more charitable to a
poor peer. [A knock at the door.]

AGNES. Entrez!

[FORTUNE and ANTONIO enter, ANTONIO carrying tea, &c., upon a tray.]

AGNES. [To ST. OLPHERTS.] You drink tea--fellow sufferer? [He
signifies assent. FORTUNE places the tray on the table, then withdraws
with ANTONIO. AGNES pours out tea.]

ST. OLPHERTS. [Producing a little box from his waistcoat pocket.] No
milk, dear lady. And may I be allowed--saccharine? [She hands him his
cup of tea; their eyes meet.]

AGNES. [Scornfully.] Tell me now--really--why do the Cleeves send a
rip like you to do their serious work?

ST. OLPHERTS. [Laughing heartily.] Ha, ha, ha! Rip! ha, ha! Poor solemn
family! Oh, set a thief to catch a thief, you know. That, I presume, is
their motive.

AGNES. [Pausing in the act of pouring out, and staring at him.] What do
you mean?

ST OLPHERTS. [Sipping his tea.] Set a thief to catch a thief. And by
deduction, set one sensualist--who, after al