He spoke in the same voice in which he might have told Raymond that he had a speck of dust on the coat, and yawned rather elaborately.
“Take care you don’t rouse it,” said Raymond.
“Why not? It rather amuses me to see you in a rage.”
“Oh, it does, does it?” said Raymond with his voice quivering.
“I assure you of it. I’m having a most amusing evening, thanks to you. And this chat has been the pleasantest part of it. Pity that it’s so late.”
Raymond, as usual, had throughout, the worst of these exchanges and was quite aware of it. He had been ill-bred and abusive through his loss of temper while Colin, insolent though his speech and his manner had been, had kept within the bounds of civil retort in his sneers and contempt. In all probability he would give an account of it all to Violet to-morrow, and there was no need for him to embroider; a strictly correct version of what had passed was quite disagreeable enough.
This Raymond wanted to avoid in view of his desire that Violet should look on him as favourably as possible. Whether he meant to propose to her during his visit here, he hardly knew himself, but certainly he wanted to be in her good books. This, and this alone, prompted him now; he hated Colin, all the more because he had been absolutely unable to ruffle him or pierce the fine armour of his composure, but as regards Violet, and perhaps his father, he feared him.
“I’m afraid I’ve lost my temper, Colin,” he said. “And I owe you an apology for all I’ve said. You had annoyed me by mimicking me and by telling father about that girl at Cambridge.”
Colin felt that he had pulled the wings off a fly that had annoyed him by its buzzing; the legs might as well follow....
“Certainly you owe me an apology,” he said. “But, considering everything, I don’t quite know whether you are proposing to pay it.”