“Billy, old boy,” said Benham, distressed, “I don't want to be ironical—”
Prothero had got his voice again.
“You'd better know,” he said, “you'd better know. She's one of those women who live in this hotel.”
“Live in this hotel!”
“On the fourth floor. Didn't you know? It's the way in most of these big Russian hotels. They come down and sit about after lunch and dinner. A woman with a yellow ticket. Oh! I don't care. I don't care a rap. She's been kind to me; she's—she's dear to me. How are you to understand? I shall stop in Moscow. I shall take her to England. I can't live without her, Benham. And then— And then you come worrying me to come to your damned Odessa!”
And suddenly this extraordinary young man put his hands to his face as though he feared to lose it and would hold it on, and after an apoplectic moment burst noisily into tears. They ran between his fingers. “Get out of my room,” he shouted, suffocatingly. “What business have you to come prying on me?”
Benham sat down on a chair in the middle of the room and stared round-eyed at his friend. His hands were in his pockets. For a time he said nothing.
“Billy,” he began at last, and stopped again. “Billy, in this country somehow one wants to talk like a Russian. Billy, my dear—I'm not your father, I'm not your judge. I'm—unreasonably fond of you. It's not my business to settle what is right or wrong for you. If you want to stay in Moscow, stay in Moscow. Stay here, and stay as my guest....”
He stopped and remained staring at his friend for a little space.
“I didn't know,” said Prothero brokenly; “I didn't know it was possible to get so fond of a person....”