"
"Have you known many women, Bev?"
"No," answered Barnabas; "but I have met the Lady Cleone--"
"Once!" added the Viscount significantly.
"Once!" nodded Barnabas.
"Hum," said the Viscount. "And, therefore," added Barnabas,
"I don't think that we need fear Sir Mortimer as a rival."
"That," retorted the Viscount, shaking his head, "is because you
don't know him--either."
Hereupon, having come to the inn and having settled their score, the
Viscount stepped out to the stables accompanied by the round-faced
landlord, while Barnabas, leaning out from the open casement, stared
idly into the lane. And thus he once more beheld the gentleman in
the jaunty hat, who stood lounging in the shade of one of the great
trees that grew before the inn, glancing up and down the lane in the
attitude of one who waits. He was tall and slender, and clad in a
tight-fitting blue coat cut in the extreme of the prevailing fashion,
and beneath his curly-brimmed hat, Barnabas saw a sallow face with
lips a little too heavy, nostrils a little too thin, and eyes a
little too close together, at least, so Barnabas thought, but what he
noticed more particularly was the fact that one of the buttons of
the blue coat had been wrenched away.
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