“Well, we’ll wait till then,” he said. “I don’t want to be unreasonable.”
Again Jim’s lip quivered, and Claude seeing that rose to go.
“Well, I must get back,” he said. “I want to hear how the mater is. She hasn’t been well, and Sir Henry Franks saw her on Saturday, and again yesterday. Look round after lunch, will you? I don’t think Dora and the governor get back till then. And you’ll come on to the musical show this evening? There’ll be some good singing. Right, oh!”
But still Jim could not speak, and there was silence again. Then Claude spoke quickly, finally.
“Buck up, old chap,” he said, and went straight to the door without looking back.
He let himself out, and went for a turn up and down the street before going to Park Lane. He had been a good deal moved, for, kind-hearted to the core, it was dreadful to him to see, as he expressed it, “a fellow so awfully down in his luck.” And he was conscious of another thing that struck him as curious. He had liked Jim during those few minutes he had seen him to-day, a thing he had never done before, and he wished he could have made things easier for him, which again was a new sensation, for all that he had ever done for his brother-in-law he had done, frankly, for Dora’s sake. But he could not see how to make this easier: it was no use telling him that cheating was a thing of no importance; it was no use telling him he need not pay back what he owed. That was not the way to make the best of this very bad job. Of course, Jim must feel miserable; it would be a thing to sicken at if he did not. Luckily, however, there was no doubting the sincerity of his wretchedness. And yet the boyish sort of advice implied by the “buck up” was in place, too. But he felt vaguely that he could have done much better than he had done: in that, had he known it, he would have found that Jim disagreed with him.
He was told to his surprise, by the servant who let him in, that Dora and his father had arrived a few minutes ago, and that Dora wished to see him as soon as he came in. Accordingly he went straight to her room.
“Oh, Claude!” she said, “you have come. We didn’t know where you were. I had no idea you had left Grote till I came down to breakfast.”
There was trouble in her voice, and he noticed it, wondering if by any chance it had something to do with the trouble he had seen already that day. But clearly it could not.
“What is it?” he said quickly.