Alec rose suddenly from his chair. “I say, it’s awfully hot in this room,” he remarked abruptly. “Come into the garden and get some air, Roger, I’m sure Mrs. Plant will excuse us.”
Mrs. Plant flashed a grateful look at him.
“Certainly,” she said, in somewhat agitated tones. “I—I think I shall go upstairs and lie down for a little myself. I have rather a headache.”
The two men watched her go out of the room in silence. Then Alec turned to Roger.
“Look here,” he said heatedly, “I’m not going to let you bully that poor little woman like this. It’s a bit too thick. You get a lot of damned silly notions into your head about her, and then you try to bully her into confirming them. I’m not going to stand for it.”
Roger shook his head in mock despair.
“Really, Alexander,” he said tragically, “you are a difficult person, you know. Extraordinarily difficult.”
“Well, it’s getting past a joke,” Alec retorted a little more calmly, though his face was still flushed with anger. “We can do what we want without bullying women.”
“And just when I was getting along so nicely!” Roger mourned. “You make a rotten Watson, Alec. I can’t think why I ever took you on in the part.”
“A jolly good thing for you that you did,” Alec said grimly. “I can see fair play, at any rate. And trying to trick a woman who’s got nothing to do with the thing at all into a lot of silly admissions is not playing the game.”