The two men stood listening a moment to her light footfall on the stairs.
'It's all a lie, you know,' said Tommy. 'She isn't engaged to dinner or to supper either. It's beastly, that's what it is.'
'Yours was all a lie too, I suppose?' Airey spoke in a dull hard voice.
'Of course it was, but I could have beaten somebody up in time, or said they'd caught influenza, or been given a box at the opera, or something.'
Airey sat down by the fireplace, his chin sunk on his necktie. He seemed unhappy and rather ashamed. Tommy glanced at him with a puzzled look, shook his head, and then broke into a smile—as though, in the end, the only thing for it was to be amused. Then he drew a long envelope from his pocket.
'I've brought the certificates along,' he said. 'Here they are. Two thousand. Just look at them. It's a good thing; and if you sit on it for a bit, it'll pay for keeping.' He laid the envelope on the small table by Airey's side, took up his hat, put it on, and lit a cigarette as he repeated, 'Just see they're all right, old chap.'
'They're sure to be right.' Airey shifted uncomfortably in his chair and pulled at his empty pipe.
Tommy tilted his hat far back on his head, turned a chair back foremost, and sat down on it, facing his friend.
'I'm your business man,' he remarked. 'I do your business and I hold my tongue about it. Don't I?'
'Like the tomb,' Airey acknowledged.