“Moved!” snapped Wentworth. “By Jupiter, I am moved to give him a sound horse-whipping, and he’ll get it, or my name’s not what it is. Why, look at it, Harrington. In the first place, Emily’s a particular friend of his. Now, wouldn’t you think that the commonest respect for her would have prevented him from bandying her name about in conversation with anybody, much less old Bagasse?” “Eureka! I have it,” exclaimed Harrington, bursting from his abstraction. “That accounts for Bagasse’s remark about the two ladies that gave the violets.” “What do you mean?” inquired Wentworth. Harrington recounted what the fencing-master had said that morning. “You see, Richard,” he added, “that set me wondering; for how did Bagasse know that ladies had given us the violets? How did he know but that I had gathered them from my own yard? Then, when I saw your nosegay in his button-hole, I thought you must have told him, and I was astonished to think that you should choose the old veteran for a confidant.” “By Jupiter, Harrington, you didn’t think I would do such a thing,” exclaimed Wentworth, reproachfully. “My dear Wentworth, it was absurd in me, and I beg your pardon,” returned Harrington. “Certainly, it was not like you; but then, somebody must have told him, and how could I imagine it was Witherlee?” Wentworth sat silent, thinking with mounting rage of Witherlee’s remarks to the fencing-master. If he had been cool and thoughtful, he might have at least suspected, from the sample he had of the good Fernando’s nature, that he was at the bottom of Emily’s alienation from himself. But Wentworth’s vivid temper only threw gleams and flashes on things, and what he saw, he saw in salient points, without observing their connections and relations. “By George, I’ll break his neck!” he foamed, stamping his foot on the floor. “Now, Richard, keep cool,” said Harrington. “You can depend that Fernando has been making mischief all round, and let us just track it out. In the first place, let’s hear Johnny’s report of what he said.” “Lord! I can’t tell you! it’s gone from me,” fumed Wentworth, running his hands through his curls, as if in search of it. “Let’s see. In the first place, he had some snob criticisms on your coat; which, he thinks, is not genteel enough to entitle you to Muriel’s friendship.” “Oh, indeed,” said Harrington, with grand good-nature. “Well, that’s a trifle, anyway.” “He said,” continued Wentworth, “that you looked like a beggarman, who had been in the watch-house all night.” “Complimentary,” jeered Harrington. “Wondered how you had the assurance to visit Miss Eastman at all, when your social position was so much beneath hers,” pursued Wentworth; “and thought it was very kind in her to permit you.” Harrington burst into a peal of hearty laughter. “Positively,” he said, “this is comic. The only tragic thing about it is, that all this time, Fernando has been pretending that he was the best of friends to me.”