Gavrolles was an artiste, and, with an artiste’s eye, he saw at a glance that the tactics of the newest thing in journalism furnished an admirable means of carrying out his designs. The affair was soon arranged. A few whispers at the Club, a few significant looks and intonations, a few anonymous lines to the editors of the society journals, and the thing was complete. It was a neck-to-neck race between Lagardère and the Yahoo as to which should use the poison first.

Gavrolles bought the ‘Plain Speaker,’ and grinned diabolically. He bought the ‘Whirligig,’ and positively beamed with malignant delight.

‘Ah, madame!’ he murmured to himself, ‘what will you say for yourself now?’

In the aesthetic circle of which he was so brilliant an ornament, and where the scandal was soon the topic of passing conversation, Gavrolles assumed an aspect of lofty indignation, and affected to deplore the public taste which could find pleasure in journalism so brutale. Pressed by his intimates for an explanation of the innuendoes, he would smile sadly, pass his thin fingers through his hair, and profess his determination to ‘compromise no one.’ There were subjects, he said, in which a woman’s honour was concerned, and which he could not discuss; there were secrets which it was a man’s duty to lock firmly in his breast, lest the happiness of another should suffer—ah, yes! And the lean young gentlemen and limp young ladies looked at their plaster of Paris idol with increased adoration.

About this time, it should be noted, Gavrolles was sincerely inspired by the Divine Muse. He wrote a great many verses, which he would read aloud to himself, with much gesticulation, in the privacy of his lodging. Sometimes he even entertained his aesthetic admirers with a selection from these splendid inspirations. Ponto was spellbound, sent a little article to the ‘Megatherium’ as a sort of puff preliminary, expressing a hope that these new ‘adumbrations of an august poesy’ would soon be published in post octavo, on rough paper with blunt type, like the divine ‘Parfums de la Chair.’ As a specimen of the new work (which, he took occasion to say, posterity would remember when Racine, Molière, and Lamartine were all forgotten, and only Gautier, Baudelaire, and Gavrolles remembered) he quoted at full length the priceless pearl of loveliness, the ‘ballade’ entitled ‘Diane: Chute d’un Ange.’

One morning, as this great cosmic creature was sipping his coffee and turning over the leaves of a new book by Zola (not without much superfine disgust, for he held that eccentric writer in very genuine dislike), a gentleman was announced, and before Gavrolles could utter a word the gentleman entered. One glance at his face sufficed. The Frenchman had seen it already once or twice before, and hated it cordially.

‘My name is Sutherland,’ said the new comer, quietly closing the door behind him. ‘Possibly you remember me?’

Gavrolles rose smiling, though his cheek was a little pale, his mouth a little venomous. ‘Ah! yes,’ he remembered well Monsieur Sutherland, who had been introduced to him by that ‘dr?le’ of a Crieff. He was delighted to make his acquaintance. If he could serve him in any way, he would be enraptured.

‘Your rapture will diminish, perhaps,’ said Sutherland, paying no attention to the hand which waved him to a chair, ‘when I tell you what brings me here.’

‘Indeed!’ exclaimed Gavrolles, rather nervously, for his visitor’s manner was not encouraging.

‘You have alluded to our second meeting. Pray do you remember our first?’

‘Our first, Monsieur?’

He did remember, only too well for his mental comfort, and even as he spoke the dreary salle à manger in the little French town arose before him, and he faced again the powerful figure with the stern eyes and the firm square jaw.

‘It was a few years ago, in France. You had then in your company a young lady whom you called your wife, and to whom, suspecting the nature of your connection with her, I offered my assistance. I afterwards saw you again, when this lady was still in your power, and you were using her as the decoy of a gambling hell.’

Gavrolles was now livid. He saw that his visitor meant mischief, and with an execration he sprang up as if to move to the door. But Sutherland blocked the way with an ominous scowl.

‘Keep your seat! I have not yet done with you!’

‘Monsieur, this outrage——’

‘Bah! do not trouble yourself to seem indignant. You shall hear me out.5

‘I shall do nothing of the kind!’

‘If you attempt to leave this room,’ said Sutherland calmly, ‘I shall thrash you within an inch of your life!’

As he spoke he held in the air a riding-whip, which he appeared to have provided for the purpose.

‘Robber! assassin!’ cried Gavrolles, and he put the table between himself and his visitor.

‘I am neither,’ said Sutherland. ‘I am simply the friend of a lady whom it seems your determination to persecute and destroy. Nor is she the only one of your victims with whom I am acquainted. Have you forgotten Adèle Lambert?’

‘I know no such person.’

‘You are a liar!’ returned Sutherland dryly. ‘You know her—you betrayed her—only a few nights ago she struck you in the face.’

‘Leave my apartment—scoundrel!’

‘It is you who are the scoundrel. I have come to call you to an account.’

Gavrolles threw his arms in the air in savage desperation.

‘I don’t know you or your degraded companions. If we were not living in a country where the code of honour is unknown, you should answer with your life for this outrage. But there! You are a coward, and trade upon the immunity given by your absurd laws. You know that we cannot in England meet as gentlemen—that is why you venture so far.’

‘You are mistaken,’ returned Sutherland, still with the same sang-froid. ‘It would give me the greatest pleasure to rid the world of so consummate a reptile, but that is neither here nor there. To come to my business. You must give me forthwith y our promise to abandon your persecution of Mrs. Forster, and to leave England with out delay.’

‘I do not understand.’

‘Oh yes, you do!’

‘Who is the lady?’ asked Gavrolles, with a sneer. ‘Pray be explicit. I know no person of the name you mention.’

‘I mean the wife of Mr. James Forster, of Kensington. Do not assume ignorance. I know the nature of your relations together.’

‘Pardon me, but in your capacity of bully, of bandit, monsieur, you overrate my intelligence. I know the gentleman to whom you allude. I have not the pleasure of knowing his wife.’

‘Read those paragraphs.’

Sutherland drew from his breast pocket, and handed across the table, copies of the ‘Whirligig’ and the ‘Plain Speaker,’ with the passages concerning Madeline marked in pencil. Gavrolles glanced at them, and smiled curiously—then tossed them back across the table.

‘You understand those references?’

‘Completely,’ answered Gavrolles, with a mock bow. He was rapidly regaining his composure, and making ready to strike his strongest blow.

‘Yet you have the assurance to tell me that you are unacquainted with the lady whose name I have mentioned?’ Gavrolles bowed again.

‘Is she not the same with whom I ............