“Maurice looks a bit done-up, doesn’t he?” he finally said, turning back towards the group about him. “He hasn’t been quite all right for a while. Seems almost as if he expected a thunderbolt to strike him any minute, doesn’t he? A bit white about the gills and holding himself in all the time.”
Before any one could reply to this, Joan rose and beckoned to Michael.
“Come along, Michael. I’ll play you a hundred up, if you like. There’ll be no one in the billiard-room.”
Michael Clifton rose eagerly from his chair and followed her out. Foxy looked after them.
“As an old friend of the family, merely wanting to know, are those two engaged or not? They go on as if they were and as if they weren’t. It’s most confusing to plain fellows like me.”
“I doubt if they know themselves,” said Una, “so I’d advise you not to waste too much brain-matter over it, Foxy. What do boys of your age know about such things?”
“Not much, not much, I admit. Cupid seems to pass me by on his rounds. Perhaps it’s the red hair. Or maybe the freckles. Or because I’m not the strong, talkative sort like Michael. Or just Fate, or something.”
“I expect it’s just Something, as you say,” Una confirmed in a sympathetic tone. “That seems, somehow, to explain everything, doesn’t it?”
“As it were, yes,” retorted Foxy. “But don’t let the fact that you’ve ensnared Cecil—poor chap—lead you into putting on expert airs with me. Betrays inexperience at once, that. Only the very young do it.”
His face lighted up.