"At least," said Collins, yielding the ground grudgingly, "you must remember always to keep on your sick-togs when you do go out, and to try to look a little less scandalously healthy than you are. Now, if you'd kept on your wraps when you jumped out of the chair—"
"How was I to kick a dog with a rug around my legs? You fellows don't give me credit for what I did do. I'd just got into a most interesting conversation with those girls, when up came a fellow whom I knew instinctively to be Markeld."
He stopped as he caught the others' astounded gaze.
"Yes, Markeld!" he repeated, defiantly. "I've an idea that he is the owner of the dog. I suppose I should have sent James to inquire who the dog belonged to before I ventured forth!"
"No matter," said Collins, impatiently. "What did you do?"
"I was guilty of unpardonable rudeness," answered Vernon. "I broke away from those girls as though they had the plague, jumped into my chair, and buried myself behind my newspaper. They must have thought I'd escaped from somewhere."
"So Markeld didn't see you, it doesn't matter what they thought," remarked Collins.
"Oh, doesn't it?"
"Surely you're not going to run any further risks for the sake of a girl more or less!"
"My dear Collins!" said Vernon, with chill politeness; "I have always suspected that a course in diplomacy sucked the blood out of a man and substituted ice-water in its stead. Now I know it. Permit me to add that you have not seen the girl—either girl—though I don't suppose that would make the slightest difference."