“Sir,” he said, mastering his passion by an effort which nothing short of his fear of rendering his wife’s name a theme for public gossip would have rendered possible, “Mrs. Beacham is not, in my presence, to be spoken about by strangers. I have no wish to be rude, none in the least--but--but as neither my wife nor I desire your acquaintance, you will allow me,” raising his low-crowned wide-awake about an inch from his head, “to wish you a good-evening.” The answer to this broad hint that the interview might be considered at an end was a low laugh, which, to John’s exasperated ears, sounded very like an insult. “One lives and learns,” he said provokingly; “and some day, when you are as old I am--not that there’s so much difference between our ages--I say, if it’s not impertinent, how old, may I ask, are you?” John could have “punched the fellow’s head,” as he said afterwards, at that moment with the greatest pleasure in life. He was the last man in the world to be sensitive on the score of his age. The whole universe might have known, for what he cared, that he was thirty-seven; but he did not choose to put up with impertinence on that or any other subject from Colonel Norcott. Before, however, he could make that resolution known in words, his free-and-easy interlocutor was off at another score. “What was I saying? O, about finding out things; that, however, is neither here nor there, so we had better come to the point at once. What I propose asking you is, whether you did not notice my looking rather hard at your wife when I passed her an hour or two ago.” At this apparently wanton insult John lost his temper altogether. “Now, by G--!” he was beginning, while his clenched fist came very near in his strong excitement to Fred’s well-curled whiskers. But the latter did not give him time to proceed. “Come, now,” he said, with a composure which was in striking contrast to the other’s look of concentrated passion, “keep yourself cool. It’s a bore when a man flies off in that kind of way. You can’t suppose I meant to insult your wife. Ridiculous! But husbands are such fools! The reason why I looked at Mrs. Beacham--but first let me ask you one question: do you know anything of your wife’s family, of her connections? or did you take--I beg your pardon--a pig in a poke, and trust to thingummy--Providence, I mean--that everything was right?”