Page:Confidence (London, Macmillan & Co., 1921).djvu/39

 IV

" of them is it?" asked Longueville of his friend, after they had bidden good-night to the three ladies and to Captain Lovelock, who went off to begin, as he said, the evening. They stood, when they had turned away from the door of Mrs. Vivian's lodgings, in the little rough-paved German street.

"Which of them is what?" Gordon asked, staring at his companion.

"Oh, come," said Longueville, "you are not going to begin to play at modesty at this hour! Didn't you write to me that you had been making violent love?"

"Violent? No."

"The more shame to you! Has your love-making been feeble?"

His friend looked at him a moment rather soberly.

"I suppose you thought it a queer document, that letter I wrote you."

"I thought it characteristic," said Longueville, smiling.

"Isn't that the same thing?"

"Not in the least. I have never thought you an eccentric man." Gordon stood there looking at him with a serious eye, half appealing, half questioning; but at these last words he glanced away. Even a very modest man may wince a little at hearing himself denied the distinction of a few variations from the 31