That very evening at the club I ran across Claydon. I told him of Grancy’s invitation and proposed that we should go down together; but he pleaded an engagement. I was sorry, for I had always felt that he and I stood nearer Ralph than the others, and if the old Sundays were to be renewed I should have preferred that we two should spend the first alone with him. I said as much to Claydon and offered to fit my time to his; but he met this by a general refusal.
“I don’t want to go to Grancy’s,” he said bluntly. I waited a moment, but he appended no qualifying clause.
“You’ve seen him since he came back?” I finally ventured.
Claydon nodded.
“And is he so awfully bad?”
“Bad? No: he’s all right.”
“All right? How can he be, unless he’s changed beyond all recognition?”
“Oh, you’ll recognize him,” said Claydon, with a puzzling deflection of emphasis.
His ambiguity was beginning to exasperate me, and I felt myself shut out from some knowledge to which I had as good a right as he.
“You’ve been down there already, I suppose?”