Sir Charles’s suspicion that Trefusis was really paying court to Agatha returned after this conversation, which he repeated to Erskine, who, much annoyed because his poems had been shown to a reader of Blue Books, thought it only a blind for Trefusis’s design upon Gertrude.  Sir Charles pooh-poohed this view, and the two friends were sharp with one another in discussing it.  After dinner, when the ladies had left them, Sir Charles, repentant and cordial, urged Erskine to speak to Gertrude without troubling himself as to the sincerity of Trefusis.  But Erskine, knowing himself ill able to brook a refusal, was loth to expose himself.

“If you had heard the tone of her voice when she asked him whether he was in earnest, you would not talk to me like this,” he said despondently.  “I wish he had never come here.”

“Well, that, at least, was no fault of mine, my dear fellow,” said Sir Charles.  “He came among us against my will.  And now that he appears to have been in the right—­legally—­about the field, it would look like spite if I cut him.  Besides, he really isn’t a bad man if he would only let the women alone.”

“If he trifles with Miss Lindsay, I shall ask him to cross the Channel, and have a shot at him.”

“I don’t think he’d go,” said Sir Charles dubiously.  “If I were you, I would try my luck with Gertrude at once.  In spite of what you heard, I don’t believe she would marry a man of his origin.  His money gives him an advantage, certainly, but Gertrude has sent richer men to the rightabout.”

“Let the fellow have fair play,” said Erskine.  “I may be wrong, of course; all men are liable to err in judging themselves, but I think I could make her happier than he can.”

Sir Charles was not so sure of that, but he cheerfully responded, “Certainly.  He is not the man for her at all, and you are.  He knows it, too.”

“Hmf!” muttered Erskine, rising dejectedly.  “Let’s go upstairs.”

“By-the-bye, we are to call on him to-morrow, to go through his house, and his collection of photographs.  Photographs!  Ha, ha!  Damn his house!” said Erskine.

Next day they went together to Sallust’s House.  It stood in the midst of an acre of land, waste except a little kitchen garden at the rear.  The lodge at the entrance was uninhabited, and the gates stood open, with dust and fallen leaves heaped up against them.  Free ingress had thus been afforded to two stray ponies, a goat, and a tramp, who lay asleep in the grass.  His wife sat near, watching him.

“I have a mind to turn back,” said Sir Charles, looking about him in disgust.  “The place is scandalously neglected.  Look at that rascal asleep within full view of the windows.”

“I admire his cheek,” said Erskine.  “Nice pair of ponies, too.”