The Intrusions of Peggy

by Anthony Hope

He weighed the suggestion. 'I couldn't go quite so far,' he concluded, with a judicial air.

'Well, then, that the mistake was in trying it at all? Or in being in a hurry? Or—or that perhaps your manner——?'

'No, I don't think there was anything wrong with my manner.'

'Could you say you understood her feelings—or, at any rate, allowed for them?'

'Perhaps I might say that.'

'At any rate you could say something comforting.' She put her arm through his. 'She's miserable about you, I know. You can say something?'

'I'll try to say something.'

'I know you'll say it nicely. You're a gentleman, Mortimer.'

She could not have used a better appeal, simple as it sounded. All through the affair—all through his life, it might be said—he had been a gentleman; he had never been consciously unkind, although he had often been to Trix unconsciously unbearable. Viola Blixworth put him on his honour by the name he reverenced.