The need of a holiday amid the bricks and mortar of Victoria Street may have impressed Arbuthnot, but it did not impress me. I dismissed the excuse as fantastic. I tackled him one day, at lunch, at the club, assuming my most sceptical manner. "Well," said he, "there's Doria. Somebody must look after her." "Doria," said I, "is a young woman, now that she is in sound health, perfectly capable of looking after herself. And if she does want a man's advice, she can always turn to me." "And there's Liosha." "Liosha," I remarked judiciously, "is also a young woman capable of looking after herself. If she isn't, she has given you very definitely to understand that she's going to try. Have you had any more interesting evenings out lately?" "No," he growled. "She's offended with me because I warned her off that low-down bounder." "I think you did your best," said I, "to make her take up with him." He protested. We argued the point, and I think I got the best of the argument. "Well, anyhow," he said with an air of infantile satisfaction, "she can't marry him." "Who's going to prevent her, if she wants to?" "The law of England." He laughed, mightily pleased. "The beggar is married already. I've found that out. He's got three or four wives in fact--oh, a dreadful hound--but only one real one with a wedding ring, and she lives up in the north with a pack of children." "All the more dangerous for Liosha to associate with such a villain." He waved the suggestion aside. No fear of that, said he. It was not Liosha's game. Hers was an Amazonian kind of chastity. Here I agreed with him. "All the less reason," said I, "for you to stay in London, so as to look after her." "But I don't like her to be seen about in the fellow's company. She'll get a bad name." "Look here," said I, "the idea of a vast, hairy chap like you devoting his life to keeping a couple of young widows out of mischief is too preposterous. Try me with something else." Then, being in good humour, he told me the real reason. He was writing another book.