“A little indisposed,” said Gumbril, and he felt suddenly very much ashamed of himself. “A little indisposed,”—no, really, that was too much. He’d withdraw the telegram, he’d go after all.
“Ready?” asked Mrs. Viveash, coming up from the other end of the counter where she had been buying stamps.
Gumbril pushed a florin under the bars.
“A little indisposed,” he said, hooting with laughter, and he walked towards the door leaning heavily on his stick and limping. “Slight accident,” he explained.
“What is the meaning of this clownery?” Mrs. Viveash inquired.
“What indeed?” Gumbril had limped up to the door and stood there, holding it open for her. He was taking no responsibility for himself. It was the clown’s doing, and the clown, poor creature, was non compos, not entirely there, and couldn’t be called to account for his actions. He limped after her towards Piccadilly.
“Giudicato guarabile in cinque giorni,” Mrs. Viveash laughed. “How charming that always is in the Italian papers. The fickle lady, the jealous lover, the stab, the colpo di rivoltella, the mere Anglo-Saxon black eye—all judged by the house surgeon at the Misericordia curable in five days. And you, my poor Gumbril, are you curable in five days?”
“That depends,” said Gumbril. “There may be complications.”
Mrs. Viveash waved her parasol; a taxi came swerving to the pavement’s edge in front of them. “Meanwhile,” she said, “you can’t be expected to walk.”
At Verrey’s they lunched off lobsters and white wine. “Fish suppers,” Gumbril quoted jovially from the Restoration, “fish suppers will make a man hop like a flea.” Through the whole meal he clowned away in the most inimitable style. The ghost of a governess cart rolled along the twiddly lanes of Robertsbridge. But one can refuse to accept responsibility; a clown cannot be held accountable. And besides, when the future and the past are abolished, when it is only the present instant, whether enchanted or unenchanted, that counts, when there are no causes or motives, no future consequences to be considered, how can there be responsibility, even for those who are not clowns? He drank a great deal of hock, and when the clock struck two and the train had begun to snort out of Charing Cross, he could not refrain from proposing the health of Viscount Lascelles. After that he began telling Mrs. Viveash about his adventure as a Complete Man.