CHAPTER XIX.
THE THIRD MAN APPEARS The Rev.Wilberforce Layton raised no objection to his daughter's excursion to London with Mrs.Capella.Indeed, he promised to meet them in Whitby a week later, and remain there during August.

Mrs.Eastham pleaded age and the school treat.
It was, therefore, a comparatively youthful party which Brett joined at dinner in one of the great hotels in Northumberland Avenue.
Someone had exercised rare discretion in ordering a special meal; the wines were good, and two at least of the company merry as emancipated school children.
The barrister soon received ample confirmation of the discovery made by the Stowmarket waiter.
Robert Hume-Frazer was undoubtedly in love with his cousin, or, to speak correctly, for the ex-sailor was a gentleman, he had been in love with her as a boy, and now secretly grieved over a hopeless passion.
Whether Margaret was conscious of this devotion or not Brett was unable to decide.

By neither word nor look was Robert indiscreet.

When she was present he was lively and talkative, entertaining the others with snatches of strange memories drawn from an adventurous career.
It was only when she quitted their little circle that Brett detected the mask of angry despair that settled for a moment on the young man's face, and rendered him indifferent to other influences until he resolutely aroused himself.
Yet, on the whole, a great improvement was visible in Frazer.

Attired in one of David's evening dress suits, carefully groomed and trimmed, he no sooner donned the garments which gave him the outward semblance of an aristocrat than he dropped the curt, somewhat coarse, mannerisms which hitherto distinguished him from his cousin.
Beyond a more cosmopolitan style of speech, he was singularly like David in person and deportment.