Owain rang for a fresh cup and saucer. "I thought you wouldn't condescend to eat and drink with a pariah."
"Fudge!" said Mrs. Perage again, and very sharply. "Who said you were a pariah, you silly fellow? That's merely hurt vanity on your part."
"How can I help being hurt, when I am so misjudged?"
"Look here." Mrs. Perage bent forward and shook his shoulder. "Are you a man or a twopenny-halfpenny school-girl?"
"I'm an ass," confessed Owain, ashamed of his petty outbreak. "But I have an attack of nerves, I think, owing to my dreadful position."
"Hum!" Mrs. Perage rubbed her nose, received a cup and saucer from Mrs. Bell, who had just entered the room, and sent that fragile person out again. "Jim hinted at trouble. It seems he was right."
"Jim knows all about it."
"Well, then, I don't. Wait till I fill my cup and then you can tell me."
"Tell you what?"
"Drat the man, you know. It's more than this trouble with Gwen you have to tell me about."