"Where did you place me?" asked she coldly. "Gallery?"
But here Dillwyn interposed, cutting off Dicky's extremely low joke.
"I tell you what," said the latter, who really had no sense of decent feeling, and was not even now ashamed of himself, "I never felt so cheerful in my life as when Blount floored that fellow. When I saw him lying on the ground in a state of collapse, I fell upon my own neck with delight."
"When you fell on your own neck"—Elfrida suppressed her smile —"did you enjoy it?"
"'Twas poor—'twas very poor," confessed Mr. Browne. "But what was to be done? If you"—he looked at Elfrida—"had been there—I could have had your neck to fall upon."
"Certainly you could not," said Elfrida indignantly.
"What!" Mr. Browne's tone had taken a most reproachful cadence.
"You mean to say you wouldn't have succoured me under such trying circumstances?"
"Under no circumstances."
"Your cruelty lays it all plain," said he. "Surely it was most merciful, considering all things, that I had my own neck to fall back upon."