At all events, I heard that distinctly. And though it meant I had scored another point and made His Imperturbability forget himself yet again, I couldn’t enjoy the triumph of it, nor even laugh to myself. There had been too much of all this.... I was suddenly tired. Tears, of fatigue, I suppose, rushed unexpectedly into my eyes, and I was obliged to turn my head and glare over the hedge at a may-tree in full bloom that became a dancing blur of pink.
He was pretending that he hadn’t begun to speak at all. He began again, stiffly:
“My uncle and another man are coming over to-night. This uncle of mine is eccentric in some ways, but extremely shrewd; and no—er—two-edged sort of remark would be lost on him.”
“I see,” I said, blinking angrily at the next may-tree, but still controlling my voice. “I had better not make any sort of remark at all then, before him. I could be too shy to open my lips. In fact, just as I am—used to be, at the office. Would that be better?”
“Distinctly better than—er—recent methods,” said the Governor dryly. “This other man is merely a business acquaintance with whom I hope to have dealings. So——”
“You want him to be favourably impressed,” I concluded intelligently, “with your fiancée and all your other belongings.”
“If you choose to put it so. But——”
A pause.
“Above all,” said the Governor, “I don’t, on this particular occasion, don’t want to be made to look a fool!”
It came out quite boyishly and slangily, and for a moment I could almost have liked Still Waters for that. Then—yes! I thought, savagely, he mustn’t be allowed to look a fool even for once, but I may go on looking a fool and worse, for the next year! And then I saw that he was inwardly rating himself for having, as he considered, played into the enemy’s hands—having allowed me to see exactly when and where I could get the better of him next.