Claude bit his lip: he did not at all like answering this.
“No, before that,” he said. “At least I was afraid it was you as soon—as soon as I found I had left a cheque-book here. I’m sorry, but as you ask me, there it is.”
“From your previous knowledge of me?” asked Jim quietly.
“Well, yes, I suppose so, though you make me feel a brute. I say, I don’t think it’s any good going back on that, either for your sake or mine.”
“Yes it is: it hurts, that’s why it’s good.”
Claude shifted his place on the sofa a shade nearer Jim, and again laid his hand on his shoulder.
“Well, I think you’ve been hurt enough for the present,” he said. “I don’t like seeing it. You’ve had as much as you can stand just now.”
Jim shook his head.
“There’s another thing, too,” he said. “I’m absolutely cleaned out, and I can’t repay you till next quarter.”
Claude considered this. It was perfectly cheap and easy to say that he need not think of paying at all, but his judgment gave him something better to say than that.