smiling, bowing, and saying, "Let us talk this matter over calmly,
smilingly, if possible."

"I'll smile when I can," returned Hamilton, made more angry, if that were
possible, by a paradoxical inclination to laugh. "Proceed, baron,
proceed! I am becoming interested in myself."

Frances gave a nervous little laugh, looked first to Hamilton, then to me
and back again, as though she would ask what it all meant, and I
continued:--

"As I have said, Frances, Master Hamilton and his friends live by
cheating at cards and other games in a manner to make all decent men
avoid play with them. They pluck strangers and feather their purses from
new geese who do not know their methods. They also derive considerable
revenue from passé women who have more wealth than beauty, are more
brazen than modest, and more generous than chaste."

"I'll not listen to another word!" exclaimed Frances, looking up to
Hamilton in evident wonder at his complacency.

"Just one moment longer, Frances," I insisted. "Master Hamilton's
intimate friends have been known on more than one occasion to stoop to
the crimes of theft, robbery, and even murder to obtain money, and have
escaped punishment only because of royal favor. I do not say that Master
Hamilton has ever participated in these crimes, but he knew of them, did
not condemn them, helped the criminals to escape justice, and retained
the guilty men as his associates and nearest friends. Add to this list
the fact that Hamilton is a roué and a libertine, to whom virtue is but a
jest, and with whom no pure woman, knowing him, would be seen alone, and