“Suppose she had made a fuss?”
“I didn’t think of that.”
“You had been drinking!”
“No. . . . Something got into me. . . .”
Wilfred was astounded and delighted by this anecdote. Such delicious effrontery was almost inconceivable to him. It was right, thought Wilfred; that was the gallant way; the mad, imprudent jolly way! Jasper loomed a hero in his eyes. He ventured to steal a look at the pair of them. Stanny was a little scandalized by the story—but only a little. Evidently it was much the sort of thing a friend might expect to hear from Jasper. Then Wilfred looked at Jasper; and at the same moment Jasper happened to raise his shy, wicked eyes to Wilfred’s face. A spark was struck, and suddenly they laughed together.
Wilfred blushed scarlet. “I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I couldn’t help hearing. . . .”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Jasper, blushing, too. “You know how it is.”
A warm tide of joy coursed through Wilfred. To be hailed by Jasper as a fellow!
Stanny now included Wilfred in his remarks. He was annoyed. “A piece of folly, if you ask me,” he said. “God knows what might have happened!”
“But it wouldn’t, to him,” said Wilfred. “There wasn’t any room in his mind for it to happen.”