“with the bravest of us. Used to like it, too.”
“I got over it before I was old enough to make myself a butt of hilarity,” the doctor retorted. “I see by the papers they’ve invented a new dance called the grizzly bear. I believe there’s another named the yip-kyoodle. I hope you’ve got ’em down pat to show the young folks to-night, Bristow.”
The major got up with some irritation. “Southall,” he said, “sometimes I’m tempted to think your remarks verge upon the personal. You don’t have to watch me dance if you don’t choose to.”
“No, thank God,” muttered the doctor. “I prefer to remember you when you still preserved a trace of dignity—twenty odd years ago.”
“If dignity—” the major’s blood was rising now,—“consists in your eternal tasteless bickerings, I want none of it. What on earth do you do it for? You had some friends once.”
“Friends!” snapped the other, “the fewer I have the better!”
The major clapped on his straw hat angrily, strode to the door, and opened it. But on the threshold he stopped, and presently shut it, turned back slowly and resumed his chair. The doctor was relighting his cigar, but an odd furtive look had slipped to his face, and the hand that struck the match was unsteady.
For a time both sat smoking, at first in silence, then talking in a desultory way on indifferent topics. Finally the major rose and tossed his cigar into the empty grate.
“I’ll be off now,” he said. “I must be on the field before the others.”
As he went down the steps a carriage, drawn by a pair of dancing grays, plunged past. “Who are those people with the Chalmers, I wonder,” said the doctor. “They’re strangers here.”