“Very well. Now to begin with the first point. Have you squarely explained the whole affair to Miss Wyatt?”
“Don’t I wish she’d give me the chance!” was the vehement reply.
“You must make the chance—by hook or by crook. That’s all I’ve got to say. It is a matter between her and you exclusively, and one in which you must fight entirely to your own hand. Now as to the other, the—er—Glover side of the difficulty. Quite sure you wouldn’t have the girl at any price?”
“Dead certain.”
“That’s so, eh?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Well, I think you’re right. I wouldn’t myself—if I were you, I mean. How did you manage to get in tow with her?”
“Oh, it was just after that last cruise of ours, about six months ago,” said Philip, in the disgusted tone of a man who realises that he has made a fool of himself and is called upon to face the consequences of his folly. “I ran down to old Glover’s place with some other fellows to a dance, and—well—Edith and I got rather thick. Drifted into it, I suppose?”
“Used to go up the river a good bit, eh? Picnic and spoon on the eyots—and all that sort of thing?”
“Yes.”