Otto, as the train gathered speed again, turned to Cliffe expectantly, as a hint that confidences might be resumed. Of course he disapproved of these casual rollicking nights spent unchaperoned save by the rolling common ... disapproved and was biliously envious: but—but—his look was akin to a nudge in the ribs—and Kennedy, always obliging, discarded poetic eloquence in favour of the one-dog-to-another style obviously more suited to the temperament of Mr Redbury. He was thoroughly enjoying his own pose of the young-Bohemian type he most abominated in practice.
“You know how it is——” was sufficient to sound the new note of waggishness. “You’ve heard the old joke about hanging pictures, Mr Redbury—I bet you have——”
“Ho! ho! ho!” from Otto.
“We were—hanging pictures ... and missed the train home—the last train but one——”
“And the last drain of all vent too late, eh?”
“Well—there it is, you see—you can’t bring a girl home at any hour—especially if her father’s at all particular—as fathers sometimes are—as fathers sometimes are, Mr Redbury.”
And Otto chuckled and winked and coughed and cleared his throat, and settled his cuffs, and chuckled again, as though the lives of Hedda and Nell were never rendered a burden to them by the paternal injunction: “Home by nine o’clock, and bed at ten”—and interposed a swaggering if somewhat laboured anecdote of his own secret unorthodoxy—“We dake it for granted this is between you and me, yong vellow!”
“Belsipark!” The doors flew ajar.
Cliffe replied with a corresponding drop into gravity: “I trust equally in your discretion regarding the confidence I have placed in you, Mr Redbury——”
“... Of course he’ll prattle—but I mentioned no names,” as Otto, trotting up the platform towards the exit, cast through the window of the compartment a look of unutterable fraternity and knowingness.