He turned on his heel to leave the room, but Clarice swiftly placed herself in his way. "Now, what do you mean by that?" she asked, wondering if Jerce had related the scene of the previous night in order to enlist Ferdy on his side to forward his suit.
"Well," mumbled the young man, pausing and fishing out another cigarette from mere habit, "there's no reason why I shouldn't tell you about the row. Jerce never said I wasn't to."
"What row--as you call it?"
"I don't know what else you would call it," retorted Ferdy, who had regained his good humour, with the shallow capacity of his nature. "I don't know who that chap in grey can be, but Jerce knows. And what's more, I believe he hunted him out last night. I was going to town with Jerce and he said that I could stop down here for a couple of days. If he wasn't after that grey chap, why didn't he want my company?"
Clarice listened to all this with a puzzled expression. "I don't understand a word you're talking about," she said, tartly; "what grey man--what row?"
"Well," drawled Baird, lighting his cigarette, and strolling back to his seat, "it's like this." And he related all that had taken place on the terrace, and described the man with the criss-cross scar on his face, ending up with a few comments of his own. "And Jerce must know the chap, for he wouldn't let me go for the police. Oh, Jerce has his secrets, and if a chap has to knock him down and go through his pockets, those secrets ain't respectable--that's all I have to say. A nice chap Jerce is, to talk of my being wild, when he's old enough to know better, and has larks like this."
"Why don't you tell him so?" asked Clarice, sarcastically.
"Oh, it's none of my business," replied Ferdy, airily. All the same his delicate colour came and went in a way which showed Clarice that he was afraid of Dr. Jerce. And very rightly, too, considering their relative ages and different positions in the world.
"It's a strange thing," said Clarice, thoughtfully, kilting up her dress and resting one slender foot on the fender. "I wonder Dr. Jerce didn't speak of the matter."
"Oh, he wants you to have a good opinion of him, so doesn't give away his little wickednesses."