Robert Stonehouse half turned away, as though shrinking from an unwelcome, painful touch.
"She's all right."
"Then may we come? I'm not afraid of Miss Forsyth. She's an understanding person. She won't think people common because of their aitches. Give her my love, won't you, Robert. And good night."
"Oh, good night!" He added quickly, sullenly: "You look blue with cold.
Why don't you wear a decent coat? It's idiotic!"
"Because my coat isn't decent. I don't want her to see me shabby. And I like to pretend I'm rather a strong, dashing fellow who doesn't mind things. Besides, look at yourself!"
"I'm different."
"You needn't rub it in." He was gay now with an expectation that bubbled up in him like a fountain. He made as though to salute Robert solemnly and then remembered and clutched at his wind-blown hair instead. "Oh, my hat! Well, it will make Connie laugh like anything!" he said.
2
To be a habitue of Brown's was to prove yourself a person of some means and solid discrimination. At Brown's you could get cuts from the joint, a porter-house steak, apple tart, and a good boiled pudding as nowhere else in the world. You went in through the swinging doors an ordinary and fallible human being, and you came out feeling you had been fed on the very stuff which made the Empire. You were slightly stupefied, but you were also superbly, magnificently unbeatable.
Mr. Brown was an Englishman. But he did not glory in the fact. It was, as he had explained to Robert one night, his kindly, serious face glowing in the reflection from the grill, a tragedy.