When he told his valet to telephone to the restaurant and the theatre respectively for a reserved table and a couple of stalls, that worthy chuckled. When his master entered a brougham in which was seated a fur-wrapped lady, the valet grinned broadly. "I knew it," he said. "The guv'nor's on the mash. Now, who would ever have thought it of him?" CHAPTER V AT THE JOLLITY THEATRE By tacit consent, Claude and his fair companion dropped for the hour the rôles of inquisitor and witness. They were both excellent talkers, they were mutually interested, and there was in their present escapade a spice of that romance not so lacking in the humdrum life of London as is generally supposed to be the case. Bruce did not ask himself what tangible result he expected from this quaint outcome of his visit to Sloane Square. It was too soon yet. He must trust to the vagaries of chance to elucidate many things now hidden. Meanwhile a good dinner, a bright theatre, and the society of a smart, nice-looking woman, were more than tolerable substitutes for progress. As a partial explanation of his somewhat eccentric behavior, he volunteered a lively account of a recent _cause celebre_, in which he had taken a part, but the details of which had been rigidly kept from the public. He more than hinted that Mr. Sydney Corbett had figured prominently in the affair; and Mrs. Hillmer laughed with unrestrained mirth at the unwonted appearance of her brother in the character of a Lothario. "Tell me," said Bruce confidentially, when a couple of glasses of Moët '89 had consolidated friendly relations, "what sort of a fellow is this brother of yours?" "Not in any sense a bad boy, but a trifle wild. He will not live an ordinary life, and at times he has been hard pressed to live at all. As a matter of fact, it is this scrape he blundered into with Messrs. Dodge & Co. that induced him to masquerade temporarily under an assumed name." "Then what is his real name?" "Ah, now you are pumping me again. I refuse to tell." "But there are generally serious reasons when a man disguises himself in such fashion." "The reason he gave me was that he dreaded being writted for liability regarding the shares I mentioned to you. It was good enough. Now you come with this story of meddling with somebody else's wife. Surely this is an additional reason. I supplied him with funds until we quarrelled, and then he went off in a huff." "What did you quarrel about?" "That concerns me only." Mrs. Hillmer was so emphatic that Bruce dropped the subject. When they drove to the theatre Mrs. Hillmer, on alighting at the entrance, said to her coachman, "You may return home now, and bring Dobson to meet me at 11.15." "May I venture to inquire who Dobson is?" said Claude. "Certainly. Dobson is my maid."