"You're a perfect hero to take it on!"
"I feel much more of a humbug, Gilly."
"When do you tackle her?"
"Never, my dear fellow! Can't you see the point? This white peacock's at the bottom of the whole thing. Neither of them shall ever set eyes on it again, and then you see if they don't marry and live happy ever after!"
"But are you going to throw the thing away?"
"Not if I can help it, Gilly. I'll tell you what I thought of doing. There's a little working jeweller, over at Richmond, who made me quite a good pin out of some heavy old studs that belonged to my father. I'm going to take him this ring to-day and see if he can turn out a duplicate for love or money."
"I'll go with you," I said, "if you can wait till the afternoon."
"We must be gone before Berridge has a chance of getting back," replied Uvo, doubtfully; "otherwise I shall have to begin all over again, because of course he'll come back cured and roaring for his ring. I haven't quite decided what to say to him, but I fancy my imagination will prove equal to the strain."
This seemed to me a rather cynical attitude to take, even in the best of causes, and it certainly was not like Uvo Delavoye. Only too capable, in my opinion, of deceiving himself, he was no impostor, if I knew him, and it was disappointing to see him take so kindly to the part. I preferred not to talk about it on the road to Richmond, which we took on foot in the small hours of the afternoon. A weeping thaw had reduced the frozen ruts to mere mud piping, of that consistency which grips a tyre like teeth. But it was impossible not to compare this heavy tramp with our sparkling spin through Bushey Park. And the hot and cold fits of poor Guy Berridge afforded an inevitable analogy.
"I can't understand him," I was saying. "I can understand a fellow falling in love and even falling out again. But Berridge flies from one extreme to the other like a ball in a hard rally."