"Because," Wilmore replied coolly, "underneath that steely
hardness of manner for which your profession is responsible, you
have a vein of sentiment, of chivalrous sentiment, I should say,
which some day or other is bound to get you into trouble. The
woman is beautiful enough to turn any one's head. As a matter of
fact, I believe that you are more than half in love with her
already."
Francis Ledsam sat where the sunlight fell upon his strong,
forceful face, shone, too, upon the table with its simple but
pleasant appointments, upon the tankard of beer by his side, upon
the plate of roast beef to which he was already doing ample
justice. He laughed with the easy confidence of a man awakened
from some haunting nightmare, relieved to find his feet once more
firm upon the ground.
"I have been a fool to take the whole matter so seriously,
Andrew," he declared. "I expect to walk back to Clarges Street
to-night, disillusioned. The man will probably present me with a
gold pencil-case, and the woman--"
"Well, what about the woman?" Wilmore asked, after a brief pause.
"Oh, I don't know!" Francis declared, a little impatiently. "The
woman is the mystery, of course. Probably my brain was a little
over-excited when I came out of Court, and what I imagined to be
an epic was nothing more than a tissue of exaggerations from a
disappointed wife.
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