The Lunatic at Large | Page 7

another to take it out."
This remark not only turned the laugh entirely on Mr Beveridge's side,
but it introduced the upsetting factor.
CHAPTER III.
The Lady Alicia à Fyre, though of the outer everyday world herself,
had, in common with most families of any pretensions to ancient
dignity, a creditable sprinkling of uncles and cousins domiciled in
Clankwood, and so she frequently attended these dances.
To-night her eye had been caught by a tall, graceful figure executing a
pas seul in the middle of the room with its hands in its pockets. The
face of this gentleman was so composed and handsome, and he seemed
so oblivious to the presence of everybody else, that her interest was

immediately excited. During the set of lancers in which he was her
vis-à-vis she watched him furtively with a growing feeling of
admiration. She had never heard him say a word, and it was with a
sensation of the liveliest interest that she listened to his brief passage
with her partner. At his final retort her tender heart was overcome with
pity. He was poor, then, or at least he was allowed the use of no money.
And all of him that was outside his pockets seemed so sane and so
gentlemanly; it seemed a pity to let him lack a little sympathy.
The Lady Alicia might be described as a becoming frock stuffed with
sentiment. Through a pair of large blue eyes she drank in romance, and
with the reddest and most undecided of lips she felt a vague desire to
kiss something. At the end of the dance she managed by a series of
little manoeuvres to find herself standing close to his elbow. She sighed
twice, but he still seemed absorbed in his thoughts. Then with a heroic
effort she summed up her courage, and said in a low and rather shaky
voice, "You--you--you are unha--appy."
Mr Beveridge turned and looked down on her with great interest. Her
eyes met his for a moment and straightway sought the floor. Thus she
saw nothing of a smile that came and went like the shadow of a puff of
smoke. He took his hands out of his pockets, folded his arms, and, with
an air of the deepest dejection, sighed heavily. She took courage and
looked up again, and then, as he only gazed into space in the most
romantically melancholy fashion and made no answer, she asked again
very timidly, "Wh--what is the matter?"
Without saying a word Mr Beveridge bent courteously and offered her
his right arm. She took it with the most delicious trepidation, glancing
round hurriedly to see whether the Countess noticed her. Another dance
was just beginning, and in the general movement her mysterious
acquaintance led her without observation to a seat in the window of a
corridor. There he pressed her hand gently, stroked his long moustaches
for a minute, and then said, with an air of reflection: "There are three
ways of making a woman like one. I am slightly out of practice. Would
you be kind enough to suggest a method of procedure?"
Such a beginning was so wholly unexpected that Lady Alicia could

only give a little gasp of consternation. Her companion, after pausing
an instant for a reply, went on in the same tone, "I am aware that I have
begun well. I attracted your attention, I elicited your sympathy, and I
pressed your hand; but for the life of me I can't remember what I
generally do next."
Poor Lady Alicia, who had come with a bucketful of sympathy ready to
be gulped down by this unfortunate gentleman, was only able to
stammer, "I--I really don't know, Mr----"
"Hamilton," said Mr Beveridge, unblushingly. "At least that name
belongs to me as much as anything can be said to in a world where my
creditors claim my money and Dr Congleton my person."
"You are confined and poor, you mean?" asked Lady Alicia, beginning
to see her way again.
"Poor and confined, to put them in their proper order, for if I had the
wherewithal to purchase a balloon I should certainly cease to be
confined."
His admirer found it hard to reply adequately to this, and Mr Beveridge
continued, "To return to the delicate subject from which we strayed,
what would you like me to do,--put my arm round your waist, relate my
troubles, or turn my back on you?"
"Are--are those the three ways you spoke of--to make women like you,
I mean?" Lady Alicia ventured to ask, though she was beginning to
wish the sofa was larger.
"They are examples of the three classical methods: cuddling,
humbugging, and piquing. Which do you prefer?"
"Tell me about your--your troubles," she answered, gaining courage a
little.
"You belong to the sex which