d I
stifled a second laugh, hugging it inside my ribs: for now I
felt that the time would not be long--that, at long last, he
would pass me over the cards. 'We both seem to have come to
this, don't we?' I answered with a shrug and a glance around.

"'I have run down here,' he went on, still betrayed back to his
old Tottenham Court Road manner, 'because I have an announcement
to make to you. . . . Have you read your _Times_ to-day?'

"He was priceless. Oh, he was falling to me--falling to me like
a ripe peach! He held out a scrap of paper.

"'Do I look like a man that takes in the _Times_?' I purred '--at
twopence a day, and the price likely to go up, they tell
me. . . . But I can guess your news, for I've watched the house.
. . . You've come all this way to tell me that you're going to
marry Constantia Denistoun. . . . Well?'

"'You have been watching the house?' asked he, staring, as it
took him aback.

"'Of course I have. . . . And she didn't tell you? . . . Gad! If
she didn't tell you, she isn't yours yet, and I've a doubt if
she's ever like to be. Did she give you leave to put in that
announcement?'

"Farrell cleared his throat. Before he could answer I had
chipped in--'No, you liar! I hate men who clear their throats
before speaking. It was an old trick of yours, of which I
believed myself to have cured you at some pains. . . . So you
have played over ardent, and there has been a row, and you have
come down here to take it out of _me_. . . . Man, you thought
you would: but I have you beaten at last; for I see you--as she
will see you--dissolving back into the cad you always were.'

"'I am going to marry her,' Farrell persisted. 'Let that eat
into your soul.'

"'It has eaten,' said I, 'these weeks ago, just as far as ever it
will get; and that's as far as a rat can gnaw into a
marlinespike. . . . Come out of this into fresh air,' said I
with another look round on our images repeated in the mirrors.
'There are too many Farrells and Foes here. When I ran the
game, at Versailles that afternoon, it had a certain dignity.
. . . But, you! . . . Your primal curse, Farrell, reasserts
itself at length. I have done my best with you, but you
reproduce it in tawdriness. Out of the Tottenham Court Road you
came: and