whom I cannot reasonably accuse of a conspiracy.  As a matter of fact, I saw little of it and confessed to nothing.  Certainly he was what some might call handsome, of a pictorial, exuberant style of beauty, all attitude, profile, and impudence:  a man whom I could see in fancy parade on the grand stand at a race-meeting or swagger in Piccadilly, staring down the women, and stared at himself with admiration by the coal-porters.  Of his frame of mind at that moment his face offered a lively if an unconscious picture.  He was lividly pale, and his lip was caught up in a smile that could almost be called a snarl, of a sheer, arid malignity that appalled me and yet put me on my mettle for the encounter.  He looked me up and down, then bowed and took off his hat to me.

‘My cousin, I presume?’ he said.

‘I understand I have that honour,’ I replied.

‘The honour is mine,’ said he, and his voice shook as he said it.

‘I should make you welcome, I believe,’ said I.

‘Why?’ he inquired.  ’This poor house has been my home for longer than I care to claim.  That you should already take upon yourself the duties of host here is to be at unnecessary pains.  Believe me, that part would be more becomingly mine.  And, by the way, I must not fail to offer you my little compliment.  It is a gratifying surprise to meet you in the dress of a gentleman, and to see’—­with a circular look upon the scattered bills—­’that your necessities have already been so liberally relieved.’

I bowed with a smile that was perhaps no less hateful than his own.

‘There are so many necessities in this world,’ said I.  ’Charity has to choose.  One gets relieved, and some other, no less indigent, perhaps indebted, must go wanting.’

‘Malice is an engaging trait,’ said he.

‘And envy, I think?’ was my reply.

He must have felt that he was not getting wholly the better of this passage at arms; perhaps even feared that he should lose command of his temper, which he reined in throughout the interview as with a red-hot curb, for he flung away from me at the word, and addressed the lawyer with insulting arrogance.

‘Mr. Romaine,’ he said, ’since when have you presumed to give orders in this house?’

‘I am not prepared to admit that I have given any,’ replied Romaine; ’certainly none that did not fall in the sphere of my responsibilities.’

‘By whose orders, then, am I denied entrance to my uncle’s room?’ said my cousin.

‘By the doctor’s, sir,’ replied Romaine; ’and I think even you will admit his faculty to give them.’

‘Have a care, sir,’ cried Alain.  ’Do not be puffed up with your position.  It is none so secure, Master Attorney.  I should not wonder in the least if you were struck off the rolls for this night’s work, and the next I should see of you were when I flung you alms at a pothouse door to mend your ragged elbows.  The doctor’s orders?  But I believe I am not mistaken!  You have to-night transacted business with the Count; and this needy young gentleman has enjoyed the privilege of still another interview, in which (as I am pleased to see) his dignity has not prevented his doing very well for himself.  I wonder that you should care to prevaricate with me so idly.’