Did he perhaps know of someone to whom such things would be useful?
He answered snappily that he did not, but he could not resist casting a downward glance at his own trousers.
Wasn't there anyone to whom he would be doing a favour by offering the clothes?
There was no one that he knew of, he repeated.
In spite of her anxiety not to hurt his feelings, she plucked up courage and remarked that there was, if she were not mistaken, an extraordinary similarity between his figure and the quondam wearer's of the suit. The general might have been a trifle stouter, but any little tailor would alter ...
Then he became seriously angry. He was not the man to accept benefits from any charitably disposed person he met. Did she think he had sunk so low as that? He had principles, and to wear cast-off raiment belonging to people he knew nothing about was a proceeding his principles would never tolerate.
Lilly, with a sigh, reluctantly relinquished her idea.
He seemed unable to tear himself away. He sat on and on and at last she was obliged to give him a hint, for at any moment now Richard might be coming in.
At the top of the stairs he turned round again, and asked, stuttering, would it be as convenient if next time he came in the evening?
"Can you no longer manage to get off at midday?" she asked, taken aback. On Richard's account she never received strangers late in the afternoon.