“Don’t say it in the open air,” said Harold.
“Come inside and make the revelation to me.”
“Then you will dine with me? Good! My dear fellow, my medical man has warned me times without number of the evil of dining alone, or with a newspaper—even the Telegraph. It’s the beginning of dyspepsia, he says; so I wait at the door any time I am dining here until I get hold of the right man.”
“If I can play the part of a priest and exorcise the demon that you’re afraid of, you may reckon upon my services,” said Harold. “But to tell you the truth, I’m a bit down myself to-night.”
“What’s the matter with you—nothing serious?” said Mr. Durdan.
“I’ve been working out some matters,” said Harold.
“I know what’s the matter with you,” said the other. “That friend of yours has been trying to secure you for the Government, and you were too straightforward to be entrapped? Airey is a clever man—I don’t deny his cleverness for a moment. Oh, yes; Mr. Airey is a very clever man.” It seemed that he was now levelling an accusation against Mr. Airey that his best friends would find difficulty in repudiating. “Yes, but you and I, Wynne, are not to be caught by a phrase. The moment he fancied that I was attracted to her—I say, fancied, mind—and that he fancied—it may have been the merest fancy—that she was not altogether indifferent to me, he forced himself forward, and I have good reason to believe that he is now in town solely on her account. I give you my word, Wynne, I never spoke a sentence to Miss Avon that all the world mightn’t hear. Oh, there’s nothing so contemptible as a man like Airey—a fellow who is attracted to a girl only when he sees that she is attracting other men. Yes, I met a man yesterday who told me that Airey was in town. ‘Why should he be in town now?’ I inquired. ‘There’s nothing going on in town.’ He winked and said, ‘cherchez la femme’—he did upon my word. Oh, the days of the Government are numbered. Will you try Chablis or Sauterne?”
Harold said that he rather thought that he would try Chablis.
For another hour-and-a-half he was forced to listen to Mr. Durdan’s prosing about the blunders of the Administration, and the designs of Edmund Airey. He left the club without asking the hall-porter for any stamps.
He had made up his mind that he would not need any stamps that night.