“Wonderful, you call it,” said Jack, witheringly. “And what’s more wonderful is, that I’d give up all for quiet quarters in the Green Dragon. I knew I was prophetic. I knew I should regret that peaceful hostelry. Diocletian, if you like. I beg you to listen. I can’t walk so fast without danger.”
“Well, speak out, man. What’s the matter with you?” cried Evan, impatiently.
Jack shook his head: “I see a total absence of sympathy,” he remarked. “I can’t.”
“Then stand out of the way.”
Jack let him pass, exclaiming, with cold irony, “I will pay homage to a loftier Nine!”
Mr. Raikes could not in his soul imagine that Evan was really so little inquisitive concerning a business of such importance as the trouble that possessed him. He watched his friend striding off, incredulously, and then commenced running in pursuit.
“Harrington, I give in; I surrender; you reduce me to prose. Thy nine have conquered my nine!—pardon me, old fellow. I’m immensely upset. This is the first day in my life that I ever felt what indigestion is. Egad, I’ve got something to derange the best digestion going!
“Look here, Harrington. What happened to you today, I declare I think nothing of. You owe me your assistance, you do, indeed; for if it hadn’t been for the fearful fascinations of your sister—that divine Countess—I should have been engaged to somebody by this time, and profited by the opportunity held out to me, and which is now gone. I’m disgraced. I’m known. And the worst of it is, I must face people. I daren’t turn tail. Did you ever hear of such a dilemma?”
“Ay,” quoth Evan, “what is it?”
Raikes turned pale. “Then you haven’t heard of it?” “Not a word.”