"Sa-ay!" he exploded—"looky here: where've you been all night?"
"Ah-h!" P. Sybarite sighed provokingly: "that's a long and tiresome story, George."
With much the air of a transient, he sat him down by George's side.
"A very long and very weary story, George. I don't like to tell it to you, really. We'd be sure to quarrel."
"Why?" George demanded aggressively.
"Because you wouldn't believe me. I don't quite believe it myself, now that all's over, barring a page or two. Your great trouble, George, is that you have no imagination."
"The devil I ain't!"
"Perfectly right: you haven't. If you point with pride to that wild flight of fancy which identified 'Molly Lessing' with Marian Blessington, George, your position is (as you yourself would say) untenable. It wasn't imagination: it was fact."
"No!" George ejaculated. "Is that right? What'd I tell you?"
"Word of honour! But it's a secret, as yet—from everybody except you and Violet; and even you we wouldn't tell had you not earned the right to know by guessing and making me semi-credulous—enough to start something—several somethings, in fact."