"All right!" returned Beau coolly. "If I were fined a hundred pounds for it, I should think it cheap for the luxury of thrashing such a hound!"
Grubbs quaked at the determined attitude and threatening eye of his assailant, and turned for relief to Miss Vere whose smile, however, was not sympathetic.
"You'd better cave in!" she remarked airily. "You've got the worst of it, you know!"
She had long been on confidential terms with the Snake proprietor, and she spoke to him now with the candor of an old friend.
"Dear me, what do you expect of me!" he almost whimpered. "I'm not to blame! The paragraph was inserted without my knowledge by my sub-editor—he's away just now, and—there! why?" he cried with sudden defiance, "why don't you ask Sir Francis Lennox about it? He wrote the whole thing."
"Well, he's dead," said Miss Vere with the utmost coolness. "So it wouldn't be much use asking him. HE can't answer,—you'll have to answer for him."
"I don't believe it!" exclaimed Mr. Grubbs. "He can't be dead!"
"Oh, yes, he can, and he is," retorted Violet. "And a good job too! He was knocked over by a train at Charing Cross. You'll see it in to-day's paper, if you take the trouble to look. And mind you contradict all that stuff about me in your next number—do you hear? I'm going to America with a Duke next month, and I can't afford to have my reputation injured. And I won't be called a 'dama' for any penny-a-liner living." She paused, and again broke out laughing, "Poor old Snawley! You do look so sore! Ta-ta!" And she moved towards the door. Lovelace, always courteous, opened it for her. She raised her hard, bright eyes, and smiled.
"Thanks! Hope I shall see you again some day!"
"You are very good!" responded Beau gravely.