"My dear Baron!" said Mr Bunker, mildly, "whose fault was it that the plot miscarried? If you'd only left it all to me----"
"Left it to you! Yes, I left too moch to you! Traitor, it vas a trick to vin ze Lady Alicia for yourself! Speak to me nevermore!" And with that the infuriated nobleman rushed off to his own room.
As there was no further sign of him for the next half hour, Mr Bunker, still smiling to himself at the recollection, went out to take the air; but just as he was about to descend the stairs he spied Lady Alicia lingering in a passage. He turned back and went up to her.
She began at once in a low, hurried voice that seemed to have a strain of anger running beneath it.
"I got the two letters I wrote you returned to me to-day through the dead-letter office. Nothing was known about you at the address you gave."
"As an address it was perfectly genuine, only it didn't happen to be mine."
She looked up at him with fine contempt, while he smiled back at her with great amusement.
"You have deceived _me_," she said, "and you have treated your other friend--who is far too good for you--disgracefully. Have you anything to say for yourself?"
"You must _never_ treat me again as--as I let you."
As a smile played for an instant about his face, she added quickly, "I don't _suppose_ I shall ever see you again. In future we are not _likely_ to meet."
"The lady and the lunatic?" said he. "Well, perhaps not. Good-bye, and better luck."
"Good-bye," she answered coldly, and added as they parted, "my mother, of course, is extremely angry with you."
"There," he said with a smile, "you see I still come in useful."
She hurried away, and Mr Bunker walked slowly downstairs and out of the hotel.
"It seems to me," he reflected, "that I shall have to set out on my adventures again alone."
The Baron's natural good temper might have forgiven his friend, but all night he was a prey to something against which no temper is proof. The Baron was bitterly jealous. All through breakfast he never spoke a word, and when Mr Bunker asked him what train he intended to take, he replied curtly, as he went to the door, "Ze 5.30."
"Vat is zat to you? I go for a valk. I vould be alone."
"Good-bye, then, Baron," said Mr Bunker. "I think I shall go up to town."
