"How do you know I want you to play gooseberry?" asked Browne savagely. "It's like your impudence to say such a thing."
"How do I know anything?" said Jimmy, with delightful calmness. "Why, by the exercise of my own common-sense, of course—a commodity you will never possess if you go on like this. You are spoons on this girl, I suppose, and since there's another coming with her, it's pretty plain to me somebody must be there to keep that other out of the way."
"You grow very coarse," retorted Browne, now thoroughly on his dignity.
"It's a coarse age, they say," Foote replied. "Don't I know by experience exactly what that second party will be like!"
"If you do you are very clever," said Browne.
"One has to be clever to keep pace with the times," Jimmy replied. "But, seriously, old man, if you want me, I shall be only too glad to come to your dinner; but, mind, I take no responsibility for what happens. I am not going to be called to account by every London mother who possesses a marriageable daughter."
"You needn't be afraid," said Browne. "I will absolve you from all responsibility. At any rate you assure me that I can depend upon you?"
"Of course you can, and anything else you like besides," Foote replied. Then, laying his hand upon Browne's shoulder, he added: "My dear old Jack, in spite of our long acquaintance, I don't think you quite know me yet. I talk a lot of nonsense, I'm afraid; but as far as you are concerned you may depend the heart's in the right place. Now I come to think of it, I am not quite certain it would not be better for you to be decently married and out of harm's way. Of course, one doesn't like to see one's pals hurried off like that; but in your case it's different."
"My dear fellow," said Browne, "as you said just now, you certainly do talk a lot of nonsense. Whoever said anything about marriage? Of course I'm not going to be married. I have never contemplated such a thing. It's always the way; directly a man shows a little extra courtesy to a woman, talks to her five minutes longer than he is accustomed to do, perhaps, or dances with her twice running, you immediately get the idea that everything is settled between them, and that all you have to do is to wonder what sort of wedding present you ought to give them."
"When a man gives himself away as completely as you have done in this particular instance, it is not to be wondered that his friends think there is something in the air," said Jimmy. "However, you know your own business best. What time is the dinner?"