"

By the time his little store had run out I knew exactly what to do with
him. "Riddling," said I, and stood up beside him suddenly and dropped my
hand with a little added weight upon his shoulder, "Riddling, do you
know the only right and proper thing to do when you hear scandal about a
friend?"

"Come straight to him," said Riddling virtuously, "as I have done."

"No. Say you don't believe it. Ask the scandal-monger how he knows and
insist on his telling you--insist. And if he won't--be very, very rude
to him. Insist up to the quarrelling point. Now who were those people?"

"Well--that's a bit stiff.... One chap I didn't know at all."

"You should have pulled him up and insisted upon knowing who he was, and
what right he had to lie about me. For it's lying, Riddling. Listen! It
isn't true that I'm besieging Lady Mary Justin. So far from besieging
her I didn't even know where she was until you told me. Justin is a
neighbor of my father's and a friend of mine. I had tea with him and his
wife not a month ago. I had tea with them together. I knew they were
going away, but it was a matter of such slight importance to me, such
slight importance"--I impressed this on his collarbone--"that I was left
with the idea that they were going to the south of France. I believe
they are in the south of France. And there you are. I'm sorry to spoil
sport, but that's the bleak unromantic truth of the matter."

"You mean to say that there is nothing in it all?"

"Nothing."

He was atrociously disappointed. "But everybody," he said, "everybody
has got something."

"Somebody will get a slander case if this goes on. I don't care what
they've got."

"Good Lord!" he said, and stared at the rug. "You'll take your oath----"
He glanced up and met my eye. "Oh, of course it's all right what you
say." He was profoundly perplexed. He reflected. "But then, I say
Stratton, why did you go for Maxton at Blake's? _That_ I had from an
eye-witness. You can't deny a scrap like that--in broad daylight. Why
did you do that?"

"Oh _that's_ it," said I. "I begin to have glimmerings. There's a little
matter between myself and Maxton...." I found it a little difficult to
improvise a plausible story.

"But he said it was his sister," persisted Riddling. "He said so
afterwards, in the club."

"Maxton," said I, losing my temper, "is a fool and a knave and a liar.
His sister indeed! Lady Mary! If he can't leave his sister out of this
business I'll br