"Only! You can use that word of a situation—"
"In which you played propriety."
"Oh, it wasn't playing."
"Yes, it was; it was playing the game—as they only play it who aren't quitters but real sports."
"But I'm not a sport. I've the quitter in me. I'm even thinking of flinging up the position—"
"And leaving them to their fate."
I smiled.
"Couldn't I let that be their affair?"
He, too, smiled, his head thrown back, his white teeth gleaming.
"You think you've caught me, don't you? But you've got the shoe on the wrong foot. I said just now that it might be their affair as to whether or not it did them any good to have you as the pretext of their meetings; but it's surely your affair when you say they sha'n't. Their meetings will be one thing so long as they have you; whereas without you—"