"Yes, you have done your part. You have introduced me to Miss Ashton, or rather Mrs. Ashton has done so, and that is the same thing. I am perfectly satisfied so far. I do not ask you to do any more. I am not a levier of blackmail. I, too, have performed my part of the contract. So far we are quits. We are as though we had never met. If you have any engagement or wish that draws you away from this place I do not see why you should remain. If you want to go, by all means go. I shall stay. Hah!" "What! Mr. Leigh, you do not mean to say you intend using my introduction here, which I undertook in compliance with your whim, as the means of effecting a lodgment!" Leigh sprinkled a few drops of eau-de-cologne from his little silver flask into the palms of his long brown-yellow hands and sniffed it up noisily. "You do not use eau-de-cologne? You are wrong. It is refreshing--most refreshing. If you had been poring over retorts and crucibles until your very marrow was turned to dust, burnt-up to powder, you'd appreciate eau-de-cologne. It's most refreshing. It is, indeed. I am not going away from this place yet; but do not let me detain you if business or pleasure is awaiting you anywhere else. Do not stand on ceremony with me, my dear sir." Hanbury ground his teeth and groaned. Sinbad's Old Man of the Sea was pleasant company compared with this hideous monster. Go from this place leaving him behind! John Hanbury would sooner fling himself head-foremost from that window than walk down the stairs without this hateful incubus. He now knew Leigh too well to try and divert or win him from his purpose. The dwarf was one of those men who see the object they desire to the exclusion of all other objects, and never take their eyes off it until it is in their hands. Once having brought Leigh here, he must hold himself at his mercy until it pleased the creature to take himself off. How deplorably helpless and mean and degraded he felt! He had never been in so exasperating and humiliating a position before, and to feel as he felt now, and be so circumstanced in this house above all other houses in London! It was not to be borne.