“Not at all. I am awfully well up in modern American fiction, and I know all about the Boston young woman and her high-class conversation. I assure you, there is no one on earth that I should be so much afraid of.”
“I am sure you took that idea from Henry James’s ‘Bostonians,’ but they are not all as superior and conscientious as Olive Chancellor was in that. Certainly I am not, and I lived for a long time in Boston.”
“Really!” he said, opening his eyes; “I had no idea of that. I think,” he went on, after a moment’s pause, “you might have mentioned it before, and saved me from giving myself away as I did.”
“You have said nothing very compromising so far,” I said, stooping down to help Henrietta’s dachshund in an attempt to scramble on to my lap; “but I thought it kinder to warn you while there was yet time.”
He laughed rather foolishly, and slowly knocked the ash off his cigarette against the window-sash. “All the same,” he said, “I think I was quite right in what I said. By the way, I got a lot of new fiddle music to-day. I wonder if you would come and have a look at it? Perhaps we could try over some?”
“I am afraid it is rather late,” I said hesitatingly. “I should like to do so very much, but I think the game must be nearly over, and we ought to go home then; it gets dark so quickly.”
“Well, perhaps you would allow me to bring it over to Durrus some day? My sister is very slow at reading music, and I think I remember your saying that you did not mind playing accompaniments.”
I did remember saying so quite well, and also the manner in which the intimation had been received; but I magnanimously determined to let bygones be bygones, and consented with a good grace.
The game was, as I had said, coming to a conclusion. Willy was playing, and evidently playing extremely well—striding round the table with silent purposeful rapidity, while Miss Watson triumphantly proclaimed the score as his break mounted. Connie, ignoring the dejection of her unhappy little partner, was leaning back against the wall, humming a little bitter tune, with the air of having lost all interest in the proceedings.
“I think Connie looks as if she had enough of Jimmy’s billiard-playing,” said Nugent, with brotherly discernment; “she doesn’t like being beaten a bit. There’s an end of Willy’s break. Now, Jimmy,” he called out, “they only want three of game—42 plays 97; it’s a good game to win!”