Richard Marsh

“ Your request for what you call an 'advance' is absurd. So far from 'advancing' you anything I shall have to cut short the allowance I have been making you. I have met here a Mrs. and Miss Danvers. I have asked Miss Danvers to do me the honour to marry me. She has consented. When that event comes to pass—which will be very shortly—your allowance will recede to a vanishing point That you will get something to do is, therefore, the advice of your affectionate brother, Cecil Buxton."
"It would be an odd coincidence," reflected Hubert, "if that Miss Danvers is this Miss Danvers." ”

“ The moment the door was opened Hubert advanced.
"Cecil! so it is you. Now, gentlemen, you will be able to see if I lied. These gentlemen, Cecil, are friends of yours, not of mine. I have never seen them before to-night. You appear to have offended them. They have been endeavouring to visit your offence on me. I cannot congratulate you on your acquaintance. That little scoundrel there, who appears to be an Italian bravo, has a knife in one pocket, and a revolver in the other. ”

“ Availing himself of the courteously offered permission, Hubert did his best to make things clear.
"I am not—as I would have told you before if you would have let me—I am not Cecil, but Hubert Buxton." The big man made another gesture. Again the little man restrained him. "We are twins. All our lives it has been difficult to tell one from the other. Of recent years, I understand, the resemblance between us has grown even greater. But the likeness is only skin deep. Cecil is the elder by, I believe, about thirty seconds. He is a rich man, and I am a poor man—bitterly poor." ”

“ Someone said, evidently not Cecil, "Open the door immediately! I am the manager of the hotel! Open at once!"
The associates looked at each other. The clamour without seemed to mean business. Hubert had slipped from their control. If they were not careful their friendly little interview might be disagreeably interrupted. The shorter man shrugged his shoulders right up to his ears.
"What is the use? You had better open the door. What is the use of playing a losing game too far?" Then, to Hubert, "With you, my friend, I will settle some other time." ”

“ Perhaps you have a bad memory, my dear Buxton." The big man's manner was affable. He turned to the manager. "You must excuse us for one moment, we have just a word to say to our friend Buxton. Here is our little private sitting-room most convenient—just a word."
Before Hubert had altogether realised the situation, the big man had thrust his arm through his, and drawn him into a sitting-room which opened off the corridor from the left. When they were in, the big man locked the door—he not only locked the door, but in an ostentatious manner he pocketed the key. ”

“ Hubert felt that, in some way, he was putting his foot in it—though he did not quite see how.
"Nothing is further from my thoughts than to make fun of you. But when I saw Mrs. Danvers' name in the visitors' book——"
"Whose name?"
"When I saw Mrs. and Miss Danvers there as large as life——"
The lady moved a step away from him. All at once she became, as it were, a different woman entirely.
"I see that you are the same man after all. The same Mr. Cecil Buxton. The same cold, calculating, sneering cynic. Only you happen to have broken out in another place. ”

“ The big man came a step nearer. "You do not remember that pleasant evening in that little room at Nice?"
"You do not remember slapping my face?" quickly exclaimed the little man, suddenly slapping his own right cheek with startling vigour. ”

“ While Hubert hesitated, the pen between his fingers, there came a rapping at the door.
IV.
The cause of that rapping at the door was this.
Cecil Buxton arrived by the train by which he had informed Miss Danvers, by letter, that he would arrive. Hastily seeing his luggage on to a cab, he drove off to the hotel. In the hall he encountered a porter.
The porter greeted him in rather a singular manner, scarcely as hotel porters are wont to greet arriving guests.
"What! Back again!" Cecil stared, as, under the circumstances, any man would stare. "This won't do, you know. ”