Evelyn had put his head a little on one side, an action common with him when he was trying to catch an effect. He showed no symptom whatever of annoyance, his face expressed only slightly amused incredulity.
“Bored with the sittings, or bored with me?” he asked.
Philip’s exasperation increased. People in ordinary life did not ask such questions. But since, such a question was asked, it deserved its answer.
“Bored with you,” he said. “I am sorry, but there it is; bored with you.”
“Thanks,” said Evelyn. “And now, if you won’t be bored with me, do get back and stand for ten minutes more. I won’t ask for longer than that. I just want—ah, that’s right, stop like that.”
Philip, as recommended, “stopped like that,” with a mixture of amusement and annoyance in his mind. Evelyn was the most unaccountable fellow; sometimes, if you but just rapped him on the knuckles, he would call out that you had dealt a deathstroke at him; at other times, as now, you might give him the most violent slap in the face, and he would treat it like a piece of thistledown that floated by him. Of one thing, anyhow, one could be certain, he would never pretend to feel an emotion that he did not feel; he would, that is to say, never pump up indignation, and, on the other hand, if he felt anything keenly, he might be trusted to scream. Philip, therefore, as he “stopped like that,” had the choice of two conclusions open to him. The one was that Evelyn felt the same antipathy to Madge as Madge apparently felt for him. The other was that he did not believe Madge had said what he had reported her to have said. But neither conclusion was very consoling; the second because, though all men are liars, they do not like the recognition of this fact, especially if they have spoken truly.
Yet the other choice was even less satisfactory, for he himself did not believe that Evelyn was bored by Madge; nor, if he pressed the matter home, did he really believe that Madge was bored by Evelyn. She had said so, it is true, and he had therefore accepted it. But it did not seem somehow likely; down at Pangbourne they had been the best of friends, and they had been the best of friends, too, since. Yet—and here the door was again slammed on the unreal Philip—yet she had said it, and that was enough.
