Chapter Eighteen
Two Heads Better Than One
“Fordham, old man, I’m in a devil of a mess,” announced Philip, dolefully, bursting into his friend’s room the following morning while the latter was shaving.
“I tell you what it is, Sir Philip Orlebar as is to be,” returned Fordham, who was in an abominably bad humour, pausing with his razor arrested. “You’ll be the death of me long before you arrive at that dignity unless you get out of a certain vile habit of crashing in upon a man during such critical moments as this. Do you think I’ve no nerves?”
“Well, I certainly did think so.”
“So it seems. But I have. So would you have if you had been expected to sleep beneath two parsons pounding about overhead in nailed boots half the night, and starting again at four o’clock this morning. The noisiest people in their rooms in these ramshackle hotels are invariably parsons and women; I imagine because the first are supposed to be professionally unselfish and the second traditionally so.”
“How do you know they were parsons?” said Philip. “Sent up the femme de chambre to ask them politely to take their boots off. She came back grinning, ‘Ce sont deux pasteurs anglais, M’sieu, qui viennent de passer le Trift-joch.’ Well, the avalanche that failed to engulph them was an avalanche in the wrong place, decidedly. I might just as well not have sent up; for though I’m not a sufficiently impartial witness to assert that they made more row thereafter, I’m fully prepared to swear that they didn’t make any less.”
“H’m! But I say, Fordham. I was saying, I’m in the very devil’s own mess.”
“That is not infrequently the case, the extent of my acquaintance with you warrants me in asserting. May I ask the nature of it this time?”
“I’ve had a devil of a row with old Glover.”
“The British merchant? Already? And the day so young! What, may I inquire, led to so decided a difference of opinion? Had you been discussing politics, or a rise in sugar?”
“Don’t chaff, Fordham. It’s no laughing matter to me. He says his daughter hasn’t had a wink of sleep all night.”
“No more has he, I should say, since he looses his combative instincts thus early. No more have I – thanks to the nailed boots of the gospel – grinders aforesaid. Well, the only thing I can suggest is that he should send down to Sierre and get her a sleeping draught.”
“He says she has lain awake all night, and is quite ill, and it’s entirely my doing.”
“Ah! I begin to see. Her room is underneath yours, I take it. Well, I always said you had rather a heavy hoof.”
“Fordham, do be serious. Don’t you see, man? You were there when they arrived yesterday – and er – er – he swears he’ll bring an action for breach of promise against me? Now do you see?”
“And he’s just the sort of animal who would do it too,” rejoined the other coolly, spreading a fresh lather upon his chin.
“Well, that’s not all – nor even the worst of it. I’m in a proper sort of hole, I can tell you,” said poor Phil, despairingly dropping into a chair and lighting up a Vevey cheroot.
“Wait a minute, Phil,” said Fordham, turning with his razor in mid-air. “There’s a time for all things and, it might be added, a place. Now I’ve a strong suspicion that the partition walls between these rooms are unconscionably thin, and that being so we had better postpone our council of war until we have got outside of our toast and coffee, and then adjourn with pipes to some sequestered spot where undisturbed we can concert plans for the discomfiture of the enemy. But, look here, you must pull yourself together. You are looking a cross between a scarecrow and a galvanised skull. Man alive, you’ll furnish sport to all the women in the house if they see you going about like this.”
“What a good chap you are, Fordham,” said poor Philip, gratefully. He was looking wretchedly pulled down and haggard, as the other had said, for he had had very little sleep. No one would have recognised the bright, handsome sunny face of yesterday. He looked a dozen years older. Even Alma, burning with outraged pride, must have pitied him.
But the Wyatts were not at table when the two came down, which was perhaps just as well. Old Glover was, but his daughter’s place was vacant. He frowned magnificently at Philip, and nodded in a stiff and patronising way to Fordham as they came in.
“Now Phil,” began Fordham, as having strolled up the meadow path behind the hotel, they sat down among a cluster of rocks and began to smoke, “Now Phil, we can talk to our heart’s content. What a chap you are. You were a semi-lunatic for the space of a week about one ‘skirt,’ and no sooner is that put right than another ‘skirt’ sails in unexpectedly and upsets the coach again.”
“Upsets it, indeed!” muttered poor Phil.
“As I understand the case,” went on Fordham, “and it’s far from an uncommon one, you neglected to throw away your dirty water before you got your clean. Consequently the former has overlapped the latter and damaged it effectually. Do you follow me?”
Philip nodded.
“Well now, what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to advise me.”
“H’m! The case stands thus. The appearance upon the scene of Number 1 has sheered Number 2 off in a deadly huff, which, under the circumstances, it was bound to do. Secondly, the British merchant and his offspring threaten to make themselves particularly disagreeable. Those are the two points upon which we must go to work.”
“Yes.”
“Very well. Now to begin with the first point. Have you squarely explained the whole affair to Miss Wyatt?”
“Don’t I wish she’d give me the chance!” was the vehement reply.
“You must make the chance – by hook or by crook. That’s all I’ve got to say. It is a matter between her and you exclusively, and one in which you must fight entirely to your own hand. Now as to the other, the – er – Glover side of the difficulty. Quite sure you wouldn’t have the girl at any price?”
“Dead certain.”
“That’s so, eh?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Well, I think you’re right. I wouldn’t myself – if I were you, I mean. How did you manage to get in tow with her?”
“Oh, it was just after that last cruise of ours, about six months ago,” said Philip, in the disgusted tone of a man who realises that he has made a fool of himself and is called upon to face the consequences of his folly. “I ran down to old Glover’s place with some other fellows to a dance, and – well – Edith and I got rather thick. Drifted into it, I suppose?”
“Used to go up the river a good bit, eh? Picnic and spoon on the eyots – and all that sort of thing?”
“Yes.”
“That river’s the very devil for getting fellows into messes of this kind. The rushes and the whispering-trees and the soft murmur of the water, don’t you know —and the champagne in the hamper – all this I suppose combines to work it. Now, did you ever propose to her in definite terms?”
“N-no. Once it struck me she thought I had. It was one evening at a dance. We were sitting out in a corner of the lawn – and the river and the moonlight on the water – ”
“And the champagne,” murmured Fordham. “No; it was sparkling Burgundy. But don’t chaff, old man. Well, I hadn’t really said anything definite. But, you know, a fellow is apt to make rather a fool of himself on such occasions, isn’t he?”
“Oh, very. Now how long was this – this evening when you hadn’t really said anything definite – before we came abroad together?”
“About a month or six weeks.”
“And of course you have corresponded ever since?”
“Up till the time I – er – you know – ”
“Yes, yes, I quite understand. Well now, have you said – written, rather – anything definite in the course of that correspondence?”
“N-no. I don’t think I can have.”
“Would you mind allowing me to judge?”
“I didn’t keep copies of the letters – Oh, I see. Hers you mean! Hang it, old man, I – er – don’t think that would be quite fair to her.”
“Just as you please,” was the perfectly unruffled rejoinder. “By the way, you didn’t perform the pleasing ceremony commonly known as ‘speaking to papa,’ did you?”
“Not I,” said Philip, with alacrity.
“Yet he came here prepared to give you his blessing – and gave it, too, in the most all-embracing fashion?”
“That’s it! That’s just it!” cried Philip, savagely. “It’s a put-up job! Yet what on earth could they want to hook me for? The dear old governor has got years and years to go on yet; and even then he won’t cut up for much, for he’s as poor as Job. Still it looks like a clear case of ‘standing in.’”
“I think it does. As for the motive, the British merchant may have had a fancy to be able to talk about ‘My daughter, Lady Orlebar – ah!’ and added to that you’re a personable dog enough, Phil. He ought to be able to supply the funds to counterbalance the title.”
“There the motive breaks down,” quickly interrupted the other. “Although he cuts great splashes with his entertainments, and is rolling in money, he has the reputation of being the most close-fisted screw extant.”
“Is that so? Ah! now I begin to see a little light. You don’t think he’d come down with a fat settlement?”
“Not the ghost of a chance of it.”
“Good. I think we may defeat him on that count. But let us again be certain on this head. You are sure you wouldn’t take the girl at any price – not if he offers to settle fifty thousand?”
“Not if he offered to settle five hundred thousand. But don’t have any misgivings on that score. He won’t come down with five, you’ll see.”
“Good again,” said Fordham. “Now, are there any other daughters?”
“Three.”
“Sons?”
“Three.”
“Seven in the family. Right. Now, Phil, your line is this. You must put a prohibitive price upon yourself. Tell him straight that you are not going to wreck all your prospects in life for a girl you don’t really care two straws about, and never will, and bring yourself down to beggary into the bargain. You can defeat him on the question of settlements – if you are only firm enough.”
“But isn’t that rather a shady standpoint to take up – eh, Fordham?” said Phil, dubiously. “Not quite one’s form – eh?”
Fordham’s dark brows came nearer together, and there was a sneer in the black, piercing eyes which were fixed on the younger man’s face.
“My dear Phil,” he replied, “if there is a phase of humanity in this latter-day world which invariably lays itself out to be kicked, hustled, jumped upon, bested all round, it is represented by the man whose ‘form’ rises up to bar him fighting the devil with fire. ‘Poor Satan!’ say such fellows as yourself. ‘It really isn’t fair!’ So, by way of equalising the chances, you surrender at discretion, and the enemy of mankind dances upon you ad lib. Here you have got to fight the devil with fire, and you won’t do it, because, forsooth, it is ‘not quite one’s form.’ You are simply the victim of a ‘plant’ – a not very cunningly baited trap – and yet you are going to let the devil – who for present purposes may be taken to mean the paternal Glover – bind you hand and foot for all time. Could ever lunacy be more complete – more hopeless?”
“Well, what shall I tell him?” said Philip, desperately.
“Tell him, in unequivocal terms, to go hang.”
For a few moments Philip said nothing. He sat watching the smoke wreaths from his pipe curling up in blue circles upon the clear mountain air, a puzzled and helpless expression clouding his features. Then at last:
“I say, Fordham.”
“Well?”
“I wish – er – I wish, old chap, you’d pull me through this affair. I mean – er – I wish you’d interview old Glover for me. You’re so cool-headed, and I – well, I get in a rage and lose my nut. Why, this morning the old sinner and I were as nearly as possible coming to fisticuffs. We shouted at and damned each other, but what we said I haven’t the faintest recollection.”
“I don’t care to undertake anything of the kind, Phil, and so I tell you candidly,” answered Fordham.
“Why not, old chap?” was the doleful rejoinder.
“Because it is dead in the teeth of every ruling principle of my life to poke my nose into what doesn’t concern me. You may say I have already done so in advising you at all. So I have, and to that extent I plead guilty to having been inconsistent. But two wrongs don’t make a right, which we may take to mean that I don’t see why I should violate my principles still further. Were I to undertake what you want me to, old Glover would begin by asking what the devil business it was of mine, anyhow. And the worst of it is, he would be right – quite right.”
“Not of necessity,” rejoined Philip, eagerly. “Surely you have a right to act for a friend; and for all he knows you may be my legal adviser. I believe you must have been a lawyer once, you’re so devilish coldblooded and logical. Now, say you’ll do it.”
Fordham’s dark brows met, and he smoked silently for a few minutes. “Coldblooded – logical,” had said this careless youngster, who was merely paltering with the very outskirts of the grim web of circumstances which go to make up the tragedies – and travesties – of the serious side of life. “Coldblooded” was he now pronounced; yet could he remember when his blood ran hot, surging and seething like the boiling and bubbling pitch. Now it lay still within his veins, cool and acrid as vinegar.
“And if I don’t bring it off all right, or as you think all right, you’ll turn round and abuse me,” he said at last.
“You needn’t be in the least afraid of that,” answered Phil. “I’ll give you a free hand to act as you think right.”
“You will?”
“Of course.”
“Now you’re talking, as they say in the States. Well, Phil, I’ll do what I can for you. But mind, you must leave everything in my hands unreservedly. None of your insane scruples about ‘form,’ or anything of that kind. Do you agree to this?”
“I do, unreservedly.”
“Well, it’s dead contrary to my principles, as I told you before; but for this once I’ll throw judgment overboard, especially as it is to turn the flank of an infernal scheming, crafty female creature,” added this misogynist, an acrid ring coming into his tone. “And now, Phil, you had better not go back to the hotel. Start off from here and walk somewhere till lunch-time – if you could make it till dinner-time, all the better. By then I shall have knocked what change I can out of the exasperated but knowing British parent.”
Chapter Nineteen
Fighting the Devil with Fire
Philip was only too ready to follow his friend’s advice, and accordingly started away there and then – whither he did not care. His only thought was to get through the day somehow.
He had no wish to encounter old Glover again. In saying that he had had a considerable row with that worthy he had in no wise overstated matters. His marked abstention from the fair Edith’s society the previous evening had been quite sufficient, and the old man had got up with the fixed determination of having it out with the defaulting swain, and withal giving the latter a very large piece of his mind. This was all very well. But old Glover, not being a gentleman himself, did not in the very least understand how to deal with gentlemen, and his method of handling his grievance was so much that of the triumphant trickster who has bested his neighbour over a bargain that it revolted Philip, unconsciously strengthening a resolve which was forming in his mind to avoid an alliance with connections of this sort at all costs and hazards.
Now, as he made his way up the mountain path with the quick elastic step of perfect physical condition, Philip began to feel more sanguine. Fordham would get him out of the mess somehow. From where he was he could make out two figures strolling out from the hotel. He had no glasses with him, but felt sure they were Fordham and old Glover. They were at it already. Fordham was a wonderful fellow, and could do anything if he chose. It would not be surprising if he were to succeed in getting rid of the obnoxious Glovers altogether, and he – Philip – were to find the field clear again when he returned that evening. He felt quite hopeful.
Not for long, however. For he remembered there was another horn to the dilemma. He might free himself from the awkward position in which circumstances and his own thoughtlessness had combined to land him; but the new sweet relationship with Alma – ah! that was a thing of the past, and this he recognised with a keen unerring instinct hardly to be looked for in his easy-going nature. This he recognised with a despairing pang, and again his heart was heavy as lead within him.
The first person Fordham encountered on returning to the hotel was old Glover himself. The latter was seated on a pile of saw-planks stacked against a chalet, smoking the pipe of solitude and sweet and bitter fancies – probably the latter, if the expression of his countenance was aught to go by. So far from being prepared to resent his intervention, there was an eager look in the old man’s eyes as he perceived Fordham, which was by no means lost upon that astute reader of human nature.
“Er – er – Mr Fordham?” he called out, the other having passed him with a commonplace remark in re the weather.
Fordham turned with just a gleam of well-feigned astonishment in his face.
“Ar – Mr Fordham,” went on old Glover now more eagerly, “would you – ar – mind accompanying me for a short stroll? I should – ar – like to have a few words with you.”
“Certainly,” was the reply, and an additional touch was thrown into the well-feigned astonishment. “I am quite at your disposal. Doing nothing this morning. We might stroll along the level towards the head of the valley.”
The other assented with alacrity, and they started, Fordham keeping the conversation to strict commonplace until they had got clear of the clusters of châlets lining the path on either side. Then the valley opened out into wide, level meadows, and, crossing the log bridge over the swirling, rushing mountain torrent, Fordham led the way into one of these.
“Er – ar” – began old Glover, who had with difficulty restrained his eagerness up till now, “have you, may I ask, known young Orlebar for a considerable length of time?”
“A goodish while.”
“Do you – ar – considar – that you know him well – er – I may say intimately?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Er – now, Mr Fordham – you will – ar – excuse the question, I’m sure. Have you always found him – ar – straightforward?”
“Invariably. Too much so, in fact, for his own interests.”
“Ar – r!” The representative of British commerce drew himself up with a sidelong stare at his neighbour. This was a quality quite outside his comprehension. He began to suspect the other was making game of him. The expanse of waistcoat swelled, and the folds of a truly magnificent pomposity deepened around its wearer as he went on. “Ar – I am sorry I cannot agree with you, Mr – ar – Fordham – very sorry indeed. In his dealings with me – with me and mine – young Orlebar has, I regret to say, shown the – ar – very reverse of straightforwardness. Are you aware, sir, that he is engaged to my daughter?”
“I can’t say I am.”
The old man halted, turned round upon Fordham, and looked him full in the face as though he could hardly believe in his own sense of hearing.
“I – ar – beg your pardon, Mr – ar – Fordham. Did I – ar – understand you to say you were not aware of it?”
“Certainly, Mr Glover. I intended you to understand precisely that.”
Old Glover was nonplussed. He began to feel small and at a decided disadvantage, a most unwonted feeling with him. He stared wonderingly, inquiringly, distrustfully, into the dark, saturnine visage confronting him, but could read nothing there.
“It is an odd thing that Phil should not have informed me of the fact,” went on Fordham. “He is usually openness itself – indeed, too much so, as I said just now. Wears his heart on his sleeve, I always tell him. However, I shall have to congratulate him the next time I see him. By the way, I suppose his father is delighted? Philip is an only son, you know.”
Nothing could be more innocent than Fordham’s tone, nothing more unsuspecting than the look of half-amused wonder with which he received the intelligence. But his keen perception noted the disconcerted wave which passed over his interlocutor’s face at this allusion to Sir Francis Orlebar.
“Fathers have different ways of taking news of that kind,” he continued, innocently. “Now, partly as a student of character, partly by reason of some slight acquaintance with Sir Francis himself, I am curious to know how he took the news of his son’s engagement. How did he?”
The question was put with blunt and cruel directness. No slippery commercial instincts could avail here. It must be answered. Poor old Glover felt unprecedentedly small in the hands of his wily opponent. Those piercing dark eyes penetrated his poor coating of pomposity as a lance-head might penetrate the rind of a pumpkin.
“I am not aware how Sir Francis took the news,” he answered, stiffly.
“He was informed, of course?” pursued Fordham, remorselessly. “Really – ar – Mr Fordham. Your tone is – ar – very strange. I am at a loss to – ar – ”
“Oh, a thousand pardons. I merely asked the question because I thought I understood you to say that Philip was engaged to your daughter. If I was mistaken – But I quite understand. Of course the affair is no business of mine. At the same time allow me to remind you, Mr Glover, that the topic was broached by yourself, and, moreover, that you requested me to accompany you for a stroll with that object. It is naturally of far greater interest to you than to me, but if it is distasteful to you, we will drop it at once. So let us talk of something more congenial.”
His manner was the perfection of ingenuous indifference. Thorough cynic as he was, Fordham was enjoying the embarrassment of this inflated old schemer, who he well knew had not brought him thus far in order to “drop the subject” at any such early stage of the conversation. And the next words proved it.
“You were not mistaken, sir. He is engaged to my daughter. And – ar – when you come to look at the matter in its right light, Mr Fordham, you will, I am sure, agree with me that he has acted with very great want of straightforwardness.”
“Perhaps. But you know, Mr Glover, Philip is an only son. It does, I confess, appear strange to me that no reference should have been made to his father at the time he asked for your consent to the engagement. He did ask for it, I suppose?”
“Hang it, sir!” blared forth the other, goaded to fury by his own helpless flounderings, which only served to entangle him deeper and deeper within the net. “Hang it, sir! You know as well as I do that in these days young people don’t trouble their heads about their fathers in matters of this kind. They take it all into their own hands – arrange it between themselves.”
The expression of astonished disapproval upon Fordham’s face as he received this announcement would have delighted the heart of the most confirmed stickler for the old-fashioned proprieties.
“Do they? I was not aware of it,” he said, “Pardon my ignorance, but I still can’t help thinking that, whatever may be the general rule, for the only son of a man of Sir Francis Orlebar’s position to be allowed to drift into a tacit engagement without consulting either the young lady’s father or his own, is – pardon me again – somewhat of an odd proceeding.”
“What is a beggarly baronet?” cried old Glover, the coarse huckstering blood showing through the veneer of a would-be stately pomposity in his blind rage at finding himself outwitted at every point. “Pooh! I could buy up a dozen of them.”
“True. I was not thinking so much, though, about what was due to a ‘beggarly baronet’ as to a gentleman and the son of a gentleman. However,” he resumed, after a pause just perceptible enough to carry that last shaft home, “let us now be frank with each other – talk as men of the world, in fact. I presume you had some object in seeking this interview with me, Mr Glover?”
Their stroll had brought them to a large rock which at some period more or less remote had fallen from above and embedded itself in the meadow. In the shade formed by this Fordham proposed that they should sit down. A beetling cliff sheered up behind to a great height, but in front and around the approaches to the place were open.
“You are right in your surmise, Mr – ar – Fordham. As an intimate friend of young Orlebar, a man, I believe, considerably older than himself, it occurred to me that you would be – ar – likely to have some influence over him – and – ar – might exert that influence towards inducing him to do what is right.”
“You may command any influence I may possess in that direction, Mr Glover,” said Fordham, suavely, though inwardly chuckling over the cool impudence of the proposal and the opacity of the mind which could propound it.
“I was sure of it – sure of it,” reiterated the other, much mollified at the prospect of so welcome an alliance. “As I said before, he is not behaving straightforwardly, and you will – ar – agree with me. Well, now, some months ago it was that he came first to my place. I’ve got a little crib down at Henley, you know, Mr Fordham – shall be happy to see you there if you are returning to England – very happy. Well, we had plenty of fun going on – parties and picnics and rowing and all that. I’m a man that likes to see young folks enjoying themselves. I don’t stint them – not I. Let them enjoy themselves when they are young, say I. Don’t you agree with me?”
“Undoubtedly,” murmured Fordham.
“Well, among other young fellows who came sparking around was this young Orlebar,” went on old Glover, forgetting his stilted pomposity in the thread of his narrative. “I was always glad to see him – ask him if I wasn’t. Soon it seemed to me that he was taking a fancy to my Edie. She’s my eldest, you know, as good a girl as ever was. She’s a pretty girl, too, and looks at home anywhere – in the Park, or wherever she may be. Now doesn’t she?”
“I quite agree with you on the subject of Miss Glover’s attractions,” said Fordham, gravely. “She would, as you say, look thoroughly at home in the Park – with a perambulator and a soldier,” he added to himself.
“All day and every day he made some excuse or other to run down. He’d take her out on the river by the hour, sit about the garden with her, be sending her flowers and things and all that. If that don’t mean intentions, I’d like to know what does. Well, I didn’t feel called upon to step in. I don’t believe in interfering with young folks’ inclinations. I liked the young fellow – we all did – and it seemed he was old enough to know his own mind. This went on for some time – some months. Then suddenly we heard he’d gone abroad, and from that day on heard no more about him by word or line. My poor Edie felt it dreadfully. She didn’t say anything at first, nor for a long time, and at last I got it all out of her. Now, that isn’t the way a girl should be treated, is it, Mr Fordham? If you had daughters of your own you would not like to see them treated like that, would you?”
“Certainly not. But pray go on – I am interested.”
He was – but in reading between the lines of this very ingenuous and pathetic tale of base and black hearted treachery. To the narrator his sympathetic tone and attitude conveyed the liveliest satisfaction, but that hoary plutocrat little guessed at what a dismally primitive hour it was requisite to rise in order to get the blind side of saturnine Richard Fordham.
“I’d taken the girls to the seaside for their summer outing,” continued the narrator – “a thing they generally go wild with delight over. But poor Edie this time said she hated the sea. She wanted to go abroad. Would I take her abroad? At first I wouldn’t, till she grew quite thin and pale. Then I knew why she wanted to go, and she told me. If she could find him out herself – make up a pleasant little surprise, she said – it would all come right. It would all be as before, and they would be as jolly as grigs. I hadn’t the heart to refuse her, and so we came. We found out where young Orlebar was, and dropped down on him with the pleasant little surprise we’d planned. But – it didn’t seem a pleasant surprise at all.”
“No, by Jove, it didn’t!” said the listener to himself, putting up his hand to hide a sardonic grin.
“You saw that it didn’t. You saw how he behaved. Didn’t seem at all glad to see us, hardly spoke to us. And that girl had been breaking her heart about him – yes, breaking her heart – and he’s never been near her since the moment she arrived. But I see how it is – he’s got another string to his bow. That high and mighty young woman that was sitting near you – Miss – what’s her name? – Miss Wyatt, isn’t it? Well – ”
“Excuse me if I remind you, Mr Glover, that among ourselves it is not usual to drag ladies’ names into other people’s differences in that free-and-easy sort of fashion,” said Fordham, stiffly, though inwardly convulsed with mirth at the idea of finding himself, of all people, taking up the cudgels on behalf of one of the detested sex.
“Eh – what? Why, they told me he was engaged to her.”
“Who told you he was?”
“Why, let me see – some of the people last night. I don’t quite recollect which of them. But perhaps you can tell me for certain. Is he?”
“Not that I am aware of.”
“Not – eh?” with a very distrustful look into Fordham’s face, and in no wise convinced; for to this representative of British commerce a man was bound to be lying, provided any adequate motive existed for mendacity, and here such motive undoubtedly did exist. “Well, they told me the pair of them were never apart, out together all day, sitting together all the evening – never apart, except at bedtime.”
“Pooh! that means nothing. Here you see, and in places like this, society is a pretty happy-go-lucky assortment, and the harmonious elements gravitate towards each other. And while we are on this subject, Mr Glover, I may as well remind you that Philip is young, a great favourite with women, and consequently a devil of a fellow to flirt. He’s always over head and ears in some flirtation or other – always has been ever since I’ve known him. But he means nothing by it, and it always comes to nothing.”