Russian political personages, the ambages were everything—­that the preliminaries were in fact the whole, and that when they were arranged, the thing was done.  Doodles proved to demonstration that the thing was not done, and that seventy pounds was too much for mere preliminaries.  “My dear fellow,” he said, speaking, I fear, with some scorn in his voice, “where are you?  That’s what I want to know.  Where are you?  Just nowhere.”  This was true.  All that Archie had received from Madam Gordeloup in return for his last payment, was an intimation that no immediate day could be at present named for a renewal of his personal attack upon the countess; but that a day might be named when he should next come to Mount Street—­provision, of course, being made that he should come with a due qualification under his glove.  Now, the original basis on which Archie was to carry on his suit had been arranged to be this—­that Lady Ongar should be made to know that he was there; and the way in which Doodles had illustrated this precept by the artistic and allegorical use of his heel was still fresh in Archie’s memory.  The meeting in which they had come to that satisfactory understanding had taken place early in the Spring, and now June was coming on, and the countess certainly did not as yet know that her suitor was there!  If anything was to be done by the Russian spy it should be done quickly, and Doodles did not refrain from expressing his opinion that his friend was “putting his foot into it,” and “making a mull of the whole thing.”  Now Archie Clavering was a man not eaten up by the vice of self-confidence, but prone rather to lean upon his friends, and anxious for the aid of counsel in difficulty.

“What the devil is a fellow to do?” he asked.  “Perhaps I had better give it all up.  Everybody says that she is as proud as Lucifer; and, after all, nobody knows what rigs she has been up to.”

But this was by no means the view which Doodles was inclined to take.  He was a man who in the field never gave up a race because he was thrown out at the start, having perceived that patience would achieve as much, perhaps, as impetuosity.  He had ridden many a waiting race, and had won some of them.  He was never so sure of his hand at billiards as when the score was strong against him.  “Always fight while there’s any fight left in you,” was a maxim with him.  He never surrendered a bet as lost, till the evidence as to the facts was quite conclusive, and had taught himself to regard any chance, be it ever so remote, as a kind of property.

“Never say die,” was his answer to Archie’s remark.  “You see, Clavvy, you have still a few good cards, and you can never know what a woman really means till you have popped yourself.  As to what she did when she was away, and all that, you see when a woman has got seven thousand a year in her own right, it covers a multitude of sins.”

“Of course, I know that.”