“Why did I tell you such things? I don’t know. Silly sort of chap, I expect. I suppose I wanted to impress you. But somehow, now, I want you to know the truth.”
Silence. Breakfast untouched. “I thought I’d tell you,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “I suppose it’s snobbishness and all that kind of thing, as much as anything. I lay awake pretty near all last night thinking about myself; thinking what a got-up imitation of a man I was, and all that.”
“And you haven’t any diamond shares, and you are not going into Parliament, and you’re not—”
“All Lies,” said Hoopdriver, in a sepulchral voice. “Lies from beginning to end. ’Ow I came to tell ’em I don’t know.”
She stared at him blankly.
“I never set eyes on Africa in my life,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, completing the confession. Then he pulled his right hand from his pocket, and with the nonchalance of one to whom the bitterness of death is passed, began to drink his coffee.
“It’s a little surprising,” began Jessie, vaguely.
“Think it over,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “I’m sorry from the bottom of my heart.”
And then breakfast proceeded in silence. Jessie ate very little, and seemed lost in thought. Mr. Hoopdriver was so overcome by contrition and anxiety that he consumed an extraordinarily large breakfast out of pure nervousness, and ate his scrambled eggs for the most part with the spoon that belonged properly to the marmalade. His eyes were gloomily downcast. She glanced at him through her eyelashes. Once or twice she struggled with laughter, once or twice she seemed to be indignant.
“I don’t know what to think,” she said at last. “I don’t know what to make of you—brother Chris. I thought, do you know? that you were perfectly honest. And somehow—”