"There've not got to be any buts. Either you bring along your friend or it's all over between us."
It was not a very serious threat, and at any other stage of their relationship Roland, considering the bother that the affair involved, might have been glad enough to accept it as an excuse for his dismissal. But he had determined to bring this thing off. He thought of Betty, large, black-haired, bright-eyed, highly coloured, her full lips moistened by the red tongue that slipped continually between them, and Brewster, fair-haired and slim and shy. It would be amusing to see what they would make of one another. He would carry the business through, and as a reward for this determination luck, two days later, came his way. He drew Brewster in the second round of the Open Fives.
On the first wet day they played it off, and as Roland was a poor performer and Brewster a tolerably efficient one the game ended in under half-an-hour. They had, therefore, the whole afternoon before them, and Roland suggested that as soon as they had changed they should have tea together in his study.
For Roland it was an exciting afternoon; he was playing, for the first time in his life, the part of a diplomat. He had read a good many novels in which the motive was introduced, but there it had been a very different matter. The stage had been set skilfully; each knew the other's thoughts without being sure of his intention; there was a rapier duel of thrust and parry. But here the stage was set for nothing in particular. Brewster was unaware of dramatic tension; his main idea was to eat as much as possible.
With infinite care Roland led the conversation to a discussion of the mentality of women. He enlarged on a favourite theme of his—the fact that girls often fell in love with really ugly men. "I can't understand it," he said. "Girls are such delicate, refined creatures. They want the right coloured curtains in their bedrooms and the right coloured cushion for their sofas; they spend hours discussing the right shade of ribbon for their hair, and then they go and fall in love with a ridiculous-looking man. Look at Morgan, now. He's plain and he's bald and he's got an absurd, stubby moustache, and yet his wife is frightfully pretty, and she seems really keen on him. I don't understand it."
Brewster agreed that it was curious, and helped himself to another cake.
"I suppose," said Roland, "that a fellow like you knows a good deal about girls?"
Brewster shook his head. The subject presented few attractions to him.
"No," he said, "I don't really know anything at all about them. I haven't got a sister."
"But you don't learn about girls from your sister."