"Listen to me, Lionel," said Harry, rising. "I am not blind. I am, for all my quiet life, perhaps as worldly wise as yourself. Do not think me so simple as not to see that you have a _penchant_ for that young girl. And now, Lionel Redgrave, I ask you, as a gentleman and a man of honour, to give me your word that you will go there no more." "Pooh! rubbish!" exclaimed Lionel, angrily. "Do you think that I am blind--or a child--a little boy with his tutor, to be taken to task for every word and look. Perhaps we are both worldly wise--perhaps not. At any rate, I am going to bind myself by no absurd promises. Perhaps you had better yourself go there no more." "I do not intend!" said Harry, quietly. "Frankly, then," said Lionel, hotly, "I do. I told you that I should before, and--by Jove, where's Luff? Why, I've not seen him since we came back. He was with me when I entered that shop the second time, I'll swear, and then all this confounded humbug put him out of my mind. There! you see," he continued, with a laugh, "I must go there again to enlist the services of Mr D. Wragg. Don't you make no mistake, Mr Harry Clayton; I'm not going to lose my `dorg,' if I can help it. But there, Harry, old fellow, as I said before, I don't want to quarrel, and I'm quite out of breath now with this long-winded speechifying; only don't be such a confounded nuisance." Harry Clayton, who was greatly moved, took a turn up and down the room. "Here, shake hands," cried Lionel, "and let's have no more of it. Let's be off out and see something. Why, stop! here!--where are you going?" "To my room," said Harry, speaking very slowly and seriously, as he took the hand held out to him. "What for?" said Lionel. "To write to your father!" "Ha--ha--ha! Ha--ha--ha!" laughed Lionel, half angrily dashing away his companion's hand, half with contempt. "Are you going to tell him that I have been a naughty boy, and to ask him to come up with a stick?" "No!" said Harry, quietly, almost sadly, "but to ask him to relieve me of my responsibility;" and then he left the room. "A confounded prig!" cried Lionel; "he grows insufferable." Then throwing his half-smoked cigar from the window in his impatience, the lighted fragment struck a heavy-faced man who was leaning against a lamp-post, and staring up at the window of the well-lighted room. The man dashed his hand to his face, growled, muttered, shook his fist at the window, and then stooped, picked up the piece of cigar, knocked away the few remaining sparks, and deposited it in his pocket, when he gave another glance upwards as he said, audibly-- "Look out, my fine fellow!--look out!" Lionel lit a fresh cigar and strolled up and down the room for a few moments. "Coming to a nice pass," he muttered. "Just as if one couldn't indulge in a little piece of innocent flirtation without being taken to task like that!"