The man who, avoiding the bar, made his way straight into the
coffee-room, entered with an air in which jauntiness and limpness were
curiously combined. His get-up showed that curious caricature of the
prevailing fashion which dressy young men of depraved, or at least
untutored, judgment are prone to affect, and was, from his patent
leather boots to his aggressive diamond tie-pin, in singular contrast
to his dusty and rather forlorn appearance. His clothes, in spite of
their over-smart cut, had the stale, creased look of garments that have
been worn for several days continuously. They were, indeed, in keeping
with the wearer's hunted look, resembling in character the coat of a
fox after a stiff run.
With a half yawn, half sigh of exhaustion, the man dropped into a
wooden armchair, and flicked with his partridge cane a bell on the
table by him.
"Heigho! My last fling. Now for a good one," he muttered.
Miss Popkiss, more than usually on the alert, and postponing for the
moment the respective claims of blue and pink, lost no time in
presenting herself.
"Well, my dear, what have you got in the house?" the man inquired,
pulling himself together and speaking jauntily, partly from policy,
partly from the natural instinct ever roused by the propinquity of a
pretty girl.
"Nice cold sirloin, sir," Mercy answered mechanically, regarding the
new guest with expectant eyes.
"Beef? Is that the best you can do?" he asked, with a dissatisfied
laugh.
"Fowl, sir," Miss Popkiss suggested in a preoccupied tone, trying to
adjust the customer's appearance and manner with her preconceived ideas
of the peerage.
"Fowl; that's better. No game?"
"Game's not in season, sir."
He gave a loud mirthless laugh to cover his mistake. "No, I suppose
not in the country," he retorted with cockney wit. "Now, look here, my
dear," he went on, impressively tapping her arm with the crook of his
stick; "to cut it short, I want the best dinner you can serve me;
regardless of expense, several courses--as many as you like--you
understand? Tell cook to do her best, and to hurry up with it."
"Yes, sir," responded Miss Popkiss, having now little doubt as to the
guest's identity. "Will you take anything to drink, sir?" she asked,
lingeringly, calculating the social advantage to be derived from being
the first in the place to see the long-lost and newly-found Lord Quorn.
"Will I take anything to drink?" He whistled scornfully at the
suggestion of a doubt in the matter. "Where's your wine-list?"
Miss Popkiss roused herself from her contemplation, and brought it.
The guest ran his fingers quickly down the column devoted not to the
brands but to their prices. "Look here. A bottle of number eleven and
a bottle of twenty-four pop."
The oldest port-wine and the most expensive champagne. The order
settled any lingering doubt in Miss Popkiss' mind. "Anything else,
sir?" she asked with an excess of assiduity as she took back the list.
The half-admiring attention with which she was observing him could not
fail by this to have its effect upon the visitor. "Well," he answered,
with a leer, which was evidently intended to be killing. "I shouldn't
mind a sip of something--just to keep me going."
If his words were equivocal, his manner left their meaning
unmistakable. Nevertheless Miss Popkiss made a spirited attempt to
ignore it. "I suppose you mean a bitters, sir?" she suggested
disingenuously.
The guest went through an exaggerated pantomime of scrutinizing the
lady's tempting lips. "No; they look anything but bitter," he
returned, waggishly amorous.
"A glass of dry sherry, sir? What number would you like?" Miss
Popkiss hastily ran to where she had replaced the wine-list, and with
the same movement took the opportunity of looking out of the window.
Mr. Thomas Sparrow was not in evidence: in fact, the yard seemed empty.
Satisfied of this she took the list demurely to the still leering guest.
"Number four," he said, with a world of cheap blandishment in his
winking eyes.
"Number four?" Miss Popkiss nearly succeeded in a look of
mystification. "Number four is a claret, sir."
"That's more like the colour," he replied significantly. "Here!" He
took a step to her, disregarding her feeble attempt to hold the
wine-list as a barrier between them. "Don't you know what make four?"
"What, sir?" she asked with a giggle now; preferring his working out of
the arithmetical problem as likely to be more racy than her own.
"Why"--taking the obnoxious wine-list with one hand, and slipping the
other round her waist--"four is two and two together, like this." And
he followed up the proposition by oscular demonstration.
"Oh, my lord! Don't do so, my lord!" Miss Popkiss affected to protest,
without, however, raising her voice to a pitch that would reach the
bar, or making more than the most perfunctory efforts to release
herself from the encircling arm.
"That's a good sample," he grinned amorously. "I should like a dozen."
There was no doubt about him, Miss Popkiss concluded, the episode
entirely falling in with her preconception of aristocratic ways. "Oh,"
she giggled, "you are a naughty nobleman." Then, releasing herself,
this time by a business-like effort, she ran off, doubtless with the
idea, after the manner of her kind, of doling out her favours and
spreading the lordly caresses over as long a period as circumstances
permitted.
Perhaps it was as well; for, scarcely had she turned her back on the
dusty Philander when the lips which had just been pressed to hers
opened wide in a very unromantic yawn. Then their owner threw himself
wearily back into the chair and laughed languidly. "Nobleman!" he
murmured, with a puff of amused scorn at the provincial greenness.
"And she called me my lord when I kissed her." The idea seemed to
tickle him in spite of his weariness. "She knows their ways," he
commented languidly as he took out a silver cigarette-case, flashily
enamelled with a spirited representation of men's three popular vices
in combination, and lighted up. "Is it my appearance, or the swagger
dinner I have ordered, or both?" he murmured, dropping now to a rueful
tone. Opposite to him, filling up the space between the windows, was a
long mirror. With what was evidently characteristic conceit, the young
man put himself into a photographic attitude, with the cigarette held
effectively after the fashion he had noted in certain royal and
theatrical portraits, and regarded himself with rueful complacency.
"Percy Peckover, my boy," he murmured, "you are going to deprive the
world of an ornament. There is plenty of fun in the world, but not for
you; so the sooner you are out of it the better. Ah!" he continued
with a shudder, "that young woman little thinks that the warm lips just
pressed to hers will soon be cold." With a quick, almost despairing
action, he put the cigarette in his mouth and then drew a small phial
from his pocket. "Yes," he said under his breath; "this will do the
business in a jiffy." He shivered, and, as though to pull himself
together, puffed vigorously at the cigarette. "By George, I should
hope so," he muttered grimly. "Ekin would not play me a trick. Yes,"
he rambled on reminiscently, "I said--didn't I?--now, mind, no pain,
Ekin, old man. None of your strychnines or antimonies. You've got the
whole shop to choose from; let me just go off to sleep and wake no
more. Yes, there were tears in poor old Tom's eyes; he was so upset he
could hardly give me the bottle, telling me to rely on his professional
skill. Let's see; he said, 'mix it in a glass of anything you like,
and you'll drop off as comfortable as an Archbishop.'" He took out the
stopper and sniffed at the phial. "It smells like Westminster Abbey,"
he said with the irrepressible jocularity of his type. "Well, it's
better than----" he shuddered at the unspoken alternative. "It only
wants a little courage; just five seconds' pluck," he told himself, as
he slipped the phial back into his waistcoat pocket. "The champagne
will give me that. 'Ang the future, let me fair enjoy myself for the
few moments that are left me."
He lighted a fresh cigarette, got up and stood admiringly before the
mirror, pulled down his soiled cuffs, settled his necktie, setting the
diamond pin straight, smoothed his hair with a hand that seemed to
tremble, then turned away with an exclamation of impatience, and stood
looking vacantly out of the window. The feeble humours of the inn-yard
seemed to amuse him: anyhow, he did not notice Mr. and Miss Popkiss who
had come to the door and stayed there regarding him with intense
curiosity and satisfaction.