Carfax’s smile was out of the depths of wisdom, and it was not visible above the horizon for the penitent.
“That was great,” he said, referring to the forlorn-hope confession of the engagement. “I don’t believe I could have done that.”
“Oh, there is nothing coming to me on that score,” Tregarvon objected, carrying self-abnegation to the limit. “I couldn’t help telling her; not because it was the honest thing to do, but because I should have burst into inconsequent little shards long ago if I hadn’t told her everything I knew.”
“And she has been encouraging this little idiosyncrasy of yours?” Carfax asked tentatively.
“Not on your life! She has been doing everything that an angel out of heaven could do to smash me back into my place; to show me how many different kinds of an idiot I was making of myself. No longer ago than this evening, when you went off with the Caswells and left me in the lurch, the first thing she did was to ask me when I was going home to marry Elizabeth.”
For the first time in Tregarvon’s knowing of him, Carfax appeared to be losing his temper.
“‘A beast, a cad, and the cheapest of cheap skates,’” he repeated carefully. “They are your own words, and they will all apply to you if you don’t tell Elizabeth all and more than you have just told me.”
“There is the millstone grind of it!” groaned the sinner. “If I should tell her how far it has gone with me, it would be tantamount to asking her to make me a present of myself, with the Uncle Byrd millions thrown in for a lagniappe. I suppose I’ve got it to do, now, but I’d cheerfully accept the alternative of walking into old Brother Daniel’s den of lions.”
“Y-e-s, I should think you would,” was the drawling comment. “Any man who would make a football of the happiness of such a woman as Elizabeth Wardwell——”
“Hold on,” Tregarvon cut in, sobering suddenly. “Get up and walk on me, if that is what you think is coming to me; but don’t mangle me with a cold iron. I’m out of it all around. If Richardia doesn’t marry you, she’ll marry Hartridge; and when I tell Elizabeth, as I’ve got to, that will be the end of things with her. You mustn’t hit a man when he is down. It’s wicked.”