But Mordaunt turned his back abruptly. "I don't want you now," he said.
"You can go."
"Dash it!" Noel said. "What a rotter you are!" He flung himself full
length upon the window-seat with elaborate nonchalance. "Run along,
Chris," he said. "We're going to talk politics. Shut the door after you.
That's right. Now, my good brother-in-law, what can I do for you?"
He sat up to slay a wasp on the window-pane, flicked the corpse in
Mordaunt's direction with airy adroitness, and lay down again.
"Are you in a wax over anything?" he inquired, with a yawn.
Mordaunt turned quietly round. "Get up!" he said.
Noel laughed up at him engagingly. "You can't kick me so easily lying down, can you? But what do you want to kick me for? I'm quite harmless."
"I am not going to kick you," Mordaunt said. "It is not my way."
"All right, then. Why didn't you say so before?" Noel sat up and regarded him with interest. "Well?" he said at the end of an expectant pause. "Let's have it, man, and have done!"
"I have nothing to give you," Mordaunt returned. "I told you you could go."
Something in the tone rather than the words caught Noel's attention. He bounced suddenly from his lounging attitude to Mordaunt's side, and thrust an affectionate arm about his shoulders.