“Why, for that—butting in between Byrne and his horse. Don’t you see, you young idiot? If Hayley hadn’t apologized, the mud was bound to stick to his wife. Everybody would have said the row was on her account. It’s as plain as the knob on the door—there wasn’t anything else for him to do. He saw it well enough after she’d said a dozen words to him—”
“I wonder what those words were,” I muttered.
“Don’t know. He and she came downstairs together. He looked a hundred years old, poor old chap. ‘It’s the cruelty, it’s the cruelty,’ he kept saying; ‘I hate cruelty.’ I rather think he knows we’re all on his side. Anyhow, it’s all patched up and well patched up; and I’ve ordered my last ’eighty-four Georges Goulet brought up for dinner. Meant to keep it for my own wedding-breakfast; but since this afternoon I’ve rather lost interest in that festivity,” Alstrop concluded with a celibate grin.
“Well,” I repeated, as though it were a relief to say, “I could swear he did it for the poney.”
“Oh, so could I,” my host acquiesced as we went upstairs together.
On my threshold, he took me by the arm and followed me in. I saw there was still something on his mind.
“Look here, old chap—you say you were in there when it happened?”
“Yes. Close by—”
“Well,” he interrupted, “for the Lord’s sake don’t allude to the subject tonight, will you?”
“Of course not.”