Those words offered me the opportunity for which I was waiting. I determined not to lose it.
"You can be of the greatest use to me," I said, "if you will allow me to presume, Major, on your past kindness. I want to ask you a question; and I may have a favor to beg when you have answered me."
Major Fitz-David set down his wine-glass on its way to his lips, and looked at me with an appearance of breathless interest.
"Command me, my dear lady--I am yours and yours only," said the gallant old gentleman. "What do you wish to ask me?"
"I wish to ask if you know Miserrimus Dexter."
"Good Heavens!" cried the Major; "that is an unexpected question! Know Miserrimus Dexter? I have known him for more years than I like to reckon up. What can be your object--"
"I can tell you what my object is in two words," I interposed. "I want you to give me an introduction to Miserrimus Dexter."
My impression is that the Major turned pale under his paint. This, at any rate, is certain--his sparkling little gray eyes looked at me in undisguised bewilderment and alarm.
"You want to know Miserrimus Dexter?" he repeated, with the air of a man who doubted the evidence of his own senses. "Mr. Benjamin, have I taken too much of your excellent wine? Am I the victim of a delusion--or did our fair friend really ask me to give her an introduction to Miserrimus Dexter?"
Benjamin looked at me in some bewilderment on his side, and answered, quite seriously, "I think you said so, my dear."
"I certainly said so," I rejoined. "What is there so very surprising in my request?"
"The man is mad!" cried the Major. "In all England you could not have picked out a person more essentially unfit to be introduced to a lady--to a young lady especially--than Dexter. Have you heard of his horrible deformity?"
"I have heard of it--and it doesn't daunt me."
"Doesn't daunt you? My dear lady, the man's mind is as deformed as his body. What Voltaire said satirically of the character of his countrymen in general is literally true of Miserrimus Dexter. He is a mixture of the tiger and the monkey. At one moment he would frighten you, and at the next he would set you screaming with laughter. I don't deny that he is clever in some respects--brilliantly clever, I admit. And I don't say that he has ever committed any acts of violence, or ever willingly injured anybody. But, for all that, he is mad, if ever a man were mad yet. Forgive me if the inquiry is impertinent. What can your motive possibly be for wanting an introduction to Miserrimus Dexter?"