"Wouldn't it be better, Sir, if you said what you had on your mind? . . ."
The old General blushed a little.
"I don't like to," he said straightforwardly. "You brilliant fellows. . . . I only want, my dear boy, to hint that. . ."
Tietjens said, a little more stiffly:
"I'd prefer you to get it out, sir. . . . I acknowledge your right as my father's oldest friend."
"Then," the General burst out, "who was the skirt you were lolloping up Pall Mall with? On the last day they trooped the colours? . . . I didn't see her myself. . . . Was it this same one? Paul said she looked like a cook maid."
Tietjens made himself a little more rigid.
"She was, as a matter of fact, a bookmaker's secretary," Tietjens said. "I imagine I have the right to walk where I like, with whom I like. And no one has the right to question it. . . . I don't mean you, sir. But no one else."
The General said puzzledly:
"It's you brilliant fellows. . . . They all say you're brilliant. . . ."