The dean shook his head in protest. “I am actually silenced. The fact is that we are just raising a fund to restore the north tower of the Cathedral, and I thought that, as you had been so generous before, you might possibly see your way to give us some assistance.” “How much?” “No, really! But if you did feel disposed to do something, however small--” The voice of the machine was again heard in the offing: “_Mr. Septimus Jones!_” “You had better make haste,” said Victoria to the dean. The dean cast an imploring look at Hammond. “I am so ashamed! May I really throw myself on your generosity?” “How much?” “I couldn’t possibly--” The curtain was lifted from outside. “Well, fifty pounds?” Hammond took out a pocket-book and began to scribble a memorandum in it. “This is too good of you. I assure you I never expected it.” The curtain had admitted a pale youth, with light-colored hair, parted in the middle, who held a pair of gloves furtively in one hand, having plainly just made the discovery that no one else had brought gloves, and being distracted in consequence by a desire to smuggle them into a pocket unperceived. Victoria greeted him with suspicious cordiality. “It is too bad of you to come so late, Mr. Jones. I haven’t enjoyed myself a bit.” “No, Lady Victoria, you mustn’t blame me.” At this point he made an effort to slip the hand which contained the gloves into a tail-pocket, but catching the unconscious eye of the dean fixed, as he supposed, on the offending articles, he drew them out again hastily. “I couldn’t get here sooner. My brougham wasn’t ready.” “You should have come in a cab.” “No, Lady Victoria, I am sure you don’t mean that I could have come in a horrid cab. I would as soon walk.” “Don’t you ride a bicycle?” “Oh yes, Lady Victoria, of course I ride a bicycle--in the morning, in the Park, you know, but not in the streets. You don’t mean that I could have come here on a bicycle, do you?” By this time he had dexterously transferred the gloves to his other hand, and was again cautiously feeling his way round to his coat-tails, when a sudden movement of Hammond’s, who had just completed his business with the dean, caused the unfortunate youth to take fright and once more relinquish his half-executed design. “I am afraid you are not in earnest, Mr. Jones.” “Oh yes, Lady Victoria, I am very earnest. Everybody says I am very earnest. I take life quite seriously--I do, indeed. I go to all sorts of lectures and that kind of thing, you know, to improve my mind.” “You will have to be careful, then,” put in Hammond as he came up, “or they will make you give them a testimonial, and advertise you in all the papers as a marvellous cure.” Mr. Jones shrank back. “Ah, now, Hammond, I am afraid of you, because you are so sarcastic. He was sarcastic then, wasn’t he, Lady Victoria?” “Not very,” replied the person appealed to. The next instant she gave an imperceptible start. “_Captain Mauleverer!_”