“I told you the lie of my life!” said Chips. “I couldn’t help myself. But this is the truth!”
And Jan took it with the enviable composure which had only deserted him when Evan was being traduced; it was several seconds before he made a sound, still standing there with his back to the bedroom window; and then the sound was very like a chuckle.
“Well, at any rate he can’t have told many!”
“I don’t suppose he did.”
“Then he picked the right one, Chipsey, and I still owe him almost as much as I do you.”
“You owe old Heriot more than either of us.”
“Heriot! Why? Does he know?”
“He knew all along, but he never meant you to know that he knew. He guessed how you’d feel it if you did; he guesses everything! Why, that very first Saturday, if you remember, when Devereux turned up for call-over and began telling me the minute afterwards, it was as though Bob Heriot simply saw what he was saying! He pounced upon us both that instant, dropped a pretty plain hint on the spot, but asked us to breakfast next morning and then absolutely bound us over never to let out a single word about you in all our days here!”
“So Evan’d been talking before he told me he never would,” mused Jan. “Well, I can’t blame him so much for that. I’m not sure, Chips, that I should have done so differently now even if I’d known. I liked him even in the old days when we were kids. Must you go?”
The question was asked in a very wistful tone. Chips felt, rather uneasily, that in these few minutes he had ousted Evan and taken his old place. He could not help it if he had. It had not been his intention on coming into the room. It was no use regretting it now.