“A girl at a village near here,” he explained. “There’s no question of her having a baby or anything like that, you know; but her brother followed me home one night, and yesterday her father turned up. I got Castleton to talk to him. But it was damned awkward. He and old Castleton were arguing like hell in our digs.”
Maurice stopped and, lighting a cigarette, looked round him as if expectant of the laughter which had hailed Venner’s story. Nobody seemed to have any comment to make, and Michael felt himself blushing violently for his friend.
“Bit chilly in here to-night, Venner,” said Lonsdale.
“You are a confounded lot of prigs!” said Maurice angrily, and he walked out of Venner’s just as Castleton came in.
“My dear old Frank Castleton,” said Lonsdale immediately, “I love you very much and I think your hair is beautifully brushed, but you really must talk to our Mr. Avery very, very seriously. He mustn’t be allowed to make such a bee-luddy fool of himself by talking like a third-rate actor.”
“What do you mean?” asked Castleton gruffly.
Lonsdale explained what Maurice had done, and Castleton looked surprised, but he would not take part in the condemnation.
“You’re all friends of his in here,” he pointed out. “He probably thought it was a funny story.” There was just so much emphasis on the pronoun as made the critics realize that Castleton himself was really more annoyed than he had superficially appeared.
An awkwardness had arisen through the inculpation of Maurice, and everybody found they had work to do that evening. Quickly Venner’s was emptied.
Michael, turning out of Cloisters to stroll for a while on the lawns of New Quad before he gave himself to the generalizations of whatever historian he had chosen to beguile this summer night, came up to Maurice leaning over the parapet by the Cher.