"A-a-a!" he jeered like a school-boy. "Why don't you finish? Bet you don't know, Jack, that this paragon friend of yours was up here on the train day before yesterday." Billings stared, for he did not know.
The chap grew more impudent. "Yah, see him turn red!"
"By Jove!" I exclaimed, warming up, you know. "Say, Billings, who the devil is this fellow?" And I advanced angrily—dashed annoyed, you know.
Billings interposed. "My brother," he said quietly.
"Yes, his brother," almost shouted the other. Then he lowered his voice at Billings' command: "And I say, you didn't tell Jack you were on the train yesterday, posing as a 'Mr. Smith,' and that you insulted Frances." He shook off his brother's hand angrily. "Oh, yes he did—sister told me about it! I knew it was you when I got to thinking about it this morning!" He panted for breath. "I can't call you a liar, Lightnut, when you say I wasn't at your rooms, because you're a quicker hitter than I am, and—" He looked around and shrugged. "And because we are in this house. But you're an infernal hypocrite, and I want Jack to know it." He laughed mockingly and faced his brother. "Ask your friend, Mr. Lightnut, about that girl in black pajamas in his rooms!"
And he flung himself from the room with a Parthian shot: "Ask him to tell you about her as he did me. Ask him who it was!"
Billings seemed to groan. "More black pajamas!" he muttered.
I faced him eagerly. "I never told him about her—I'll swear I didn't," I pleaded miserably. "You know all there is to know, Jack. I wouldn't tell anybody in the world a thing like that. I—love her too well. Much less would I go and tell her own brother."
"Wha-a-a-t?" Billings' fat body almost leaped into the air. "What the devil—say, old chap, what are you talking about?"
"And, besides, she's forgiven me," I persisted gloomily. "And I love her—and—and we're going to be married—or I hope so, dash it!"