"
"I agree; but still--!" sighed Duchemin, throwing himself heavily into
a chair.
"Which," Wertheimer continued, standing, "is why we arranged to give
him that billet with the British Legation in Peking."
"Didn't know you had a hand in that," observed Duchemin, after
favouring the other with a morose stare.
"Oh, you can't trust me! When you get to know me better you'll find I'm
always like that--forever flitting hither and yon, bestowing benefits
and boons on the ungrateful, like any other giddy Providence."
"But one is not ungrateful," Duchemin insisted. "God knows I would
gladly have sped Karslake's emigration with Sonia to Van Dieman's Land
or Patagonia or where you will, if it promised to keep him out of the
way long enough for the Smolny Institute to forget him."
"Since the said Smolny inconsiderately persists in failing to collapse,
as per the daily predictions of the hopeful."
"Just so."
"But aren't you forgetting you yourself have given that Smolny lot the
same and quite as much reason for holding your name anathema?"
"Ah!" Duchemin growled--"as for me, I can take care of myself, thank
you.
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