Then he got up, and walked towards the window, and gazed out into the rain with that expression upon his face upon which depends the manliness of our youth.
Mr Harbury looked at him as he stood those few feet off in the grey light, with his face averted. He turned in his mind all that he knew of men embarrassed, of young men who did not know the nature of the world, and then he said quietly:
“I will let you have it myself.”
But Cosmo repeated the phrase he thought best:
“I have already told you, I will not borrow from my friends,” and he deepened the expression of manliness, and stood quite firm where he was. Mr Harbury was genuinely impatient.
“Then borrow it in the regular way,” he said, “but whatever you do don’t get a sum like that on your nerves ... people are so funny about money when there’s any hurry....”
Then he turned round sharply and cried:
“Good Lord, it isn’t worth all this fuss. Borrow it from some regular man—De Vere, or Ashington, or Massingberd, or somebody.... They know who you are.”
“I know what happens when people do that,” said Cosmo, for he had read a thousand things; and then he added, “Sixty per cent.,” as though it was a kind of secret password, showing him to have a vast experience of mankind.
In spite of his good nature, Mr Harbury was almost angry with a young man aghast at a thousand pounds, using fine phrases and bringing in the 60 per cent. of the police-courts and the novelists; the 60 per cent. which farmers pay, and poor widows, and insignificant officers of the line, and men hiding, and all who have no backing.