"'With your permission, sir,' I said quietly, 'I expect to give a great deal of it away.'
"Roger, he couldn't speak for rage. He glared at me again and then, jamming his hat on his head, stalked stiffly out. Oh, I've made a mess of things, I suppose," he sighed, "but I can't help it. I'm sick of the whole miserable business."
I made no comment. I had foreseen this interview, but it had come much sooner than I had expected. I felt that I had known Jerry's mind and what he would do eventually, but it was rather startling that he had come to so momentous a decision and had expressed it so vigorously at the very outset of his career. It was curious, too, as I remembered things that had gone before, how nearly his resolution coincided with the one boyishly confessed to the female, Una Smith, in the cabin in the woods last summer. At the time, I recalled, the matter had made no great impression upon me. I had not believed that Jerry could realize what he was promising. But here he was reiterating the promise at the very seats of the mighty.
The subject was too vast a one for me to grasp at once. I wanted to think about it. Besides, he didn't ask my advice. I don't think he really wanted it. I looked at Jerry's chin. It was square. For all his sophistries, Jack Ballard was no mean judge of human nature.
CHAPTER X
MARCIA
Jerry came down to the breakfast table attired in tweeds of a rather violent pattern, knickerbockers and spats. He wore a plaid shirt with turnover cuffs, a gay scarf and a handkerchief just showing a neat triangle of the same color at his upper coat pocket. This handkerchief, he informed me airily, was his "show-er." He kept the "blow-er" in his trousers. At all events, he was much pleased when I told him that the symphony was complete.
"The linen, allegro, the cravat, adagio con amore, the suit—there's too much of the scherzo in the suit, my boy."
"Con amore?" he asked, looking up from his oatmeal.