'
He nodded coolly to the dumb man, and strode gaily along under the
shade of the heavily foliaged oaks, while Pierre looked at the
sovereign, slipped it into his pocket, and slouched off in the
opposite direction without even a glance at his patron.
At the top of the street Vandeloup stepped into a cab, and telling
the man to drive to the St Kilda Station, in Elizabeth Street, went
off into a brown study. Pierre annoyed him seriously, as he never
seemed to get rid of him, and the dumb man kept turning up every now
and then like the mummy at the Egyptian feast to remind him of
unpleasant things.
'Confound him!' muttered Vandeloup, angrily, as he alighted at the
station and paid the cabman, 'he's more trouble than Bebe was; she
did take the hint and go, but this man, my faith!' shrugging his
shoulders, 'he's the devil himself for sticking.'
All the way down to St Kilda his reflections were of the same
unpleasant nature, and he cast about in his own mind how he could
get rid of this pertinacious friend. He could not turn him off
openly, as Pierre might take offence, and as he knew more of M.
Vandeloup's private life than that young gentleman cared about, it
would not do to run the risk of an exposure.
'There's only one thing to be done,' said Gaston, quietly, as he
walked down to Mrs Villiers' house; 'I will try my luck at marrying
Madame Midas; if she consents, we can go away to Europe as man and
wife; if she does not I will go to America, and, in either case,
Pierre will lose trace of me.
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