If you went away to-night it would be an insult. Whatever you
decide to do later, you've simply got to stay here till Tuesday
morning!"
"Must I?" he said, in the tone of a person who is ordered not to leave
the sinking ship.
"A gentleman has to," I said.
He quavered out a sort of acquiescence, and then asked me for the loan
of a white tie. I should have loved to give him a bowstring instead,
with somebody who knew how to operate it. He was a fluff, that fellow--a
tarnation fluff!
IV
It was a pretty glum evening all round. Most of them thought that Jones
had got the chilly mitt. Eleanor looked pale and undecided, not knowing
what to make of Jones' death's-head face. She was resentful and pitying
in turns, and I saw all the material lying around for a first-class
conflagration. Freddy was a bit down on me, too, saying that a smoother
method would have ironed out Jones, and that I had been headlong and
silly. She cried over it, and wouldn't kiss me in the dark; and I was
goaded into saying--well, the course of true love ran in bumps that
night.
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