“He’s a nice pianist, isn’t he? He’d be more at home blacking the lodger’s boots, instead of pretending to be a gentleman on his mother’s hard earned savings.” She herself was a plumber’s daughter, but in her case that was not to the point. With commendable presence of mind I pretended not to hear, and commenced to play something loudly on the piano. She was, however, transported with rage at her own failure and determined to make somebody pay. She shut the lid of the piano down violently, and I only just managed to save my hands from being crushed. To such a female, in such a condition, it is not a long way to hysterics. “Get back to the lodgers!” she screamed. “What do you mean by coming here and pretending to be a gentleman? You ought to be horsewhipped. You——” Here followed a string of epithets intensely humiliating to have to listen to under the circumstances. The other ladies present proceeded to take her part and to treat her as a highly injured female. They crowded round her as she lay sobbing and gurgling and swearing on the sofa, and deluged her with sympathy. “I really don’t wonder at her being upset,” said one. “Such a thing to find out. Enough to make her feel small,” protested another. “It is indeed,” said a third, and turning to me added with a comic attempt at hauteur, “You cad!” I felt terribly uncomfortable. I quite saw the sort of character Lionel Holland had been kind enough to give me. I felt like breaking a champagne bottle over his head, only it would have done no good, and vengeance should always bide its time if it is to be effective. He too looked uncomfortable, as if he had not expected the mean part he had played to be brought home to him so obviously and so soon. As my presence seemed to make the lady grow worse every moment I suggested that I should go. My host, a youth with every instinct of good breeding, would not hear of it, but several of the other men were growing a little tired of the scene. They had only met me in such society as we were now in and it did not matter to them what my origin was. They would not be called upon to recognise me in a legitimate social way. “Good-night, your lordship,” said one of the women mockingly, as I left the room. It was no haphazard gibe. Obviously Holland, in order to heap further discredit upon me, had revived the boast of my schoolboy days. I went up to him before I left the house and said quite quietly, so that no one else could hear: “You will be very sorry for this, and I want to assure you of the fact.” I cannot describe the intense conviction I managed to throw into the words. I felt they would come true. He tried to laugh scornfully but the failure died upon his lips. He was frightened in spite of himself. Chapter IV