“Why? How the hell do I know why!”
He crumpled his paper, thrust it under his arm and dug the released hand into his pocket. Thus was Gerald Haveleur March armed cap-a-pie against life. He had something on his mind, one could see that. But it would take hours to make Gerald confide anything.
“I say, have a drink?”
Now I wonder how many thousands of men are at this very moment putting that question to thousands of men; yet that, if nothing else, would have made that night significant in my life, for never before had the solitary asked me or, I think, any one to have a drink with him. Nor would he, as a rule, have a drink if you suggested it. And once, at a party I gave, he had some gingerbeer. But, even so, I had to say I couldn’t, pleading that I would be too late for dinner. “With Hilary,” I said, and he scowled absently in a way he had, and lounged up the road with me. Thoughtful he was always.
That was a curious, capacious evening. The Marches were gathered together that evening, they who were never let off anything. As Gerald lounged beside me the great primrose car with the menacing shining bonnet passed us as silently as though Curzon Street was a carpet. It was empty but for a boyish chauffeur. Gerald, I suppose, did not know it, and I did not remark on it. I wondered if Iris had surprised Mrs. Oden by returning suddenly. Poor Mr. Oden....
“What have you been doing with yourself lately, Gerald?”
“Doing?” His eyes pierced the pavement the other side of my shoulder, for tall was Gerald.
He grinned....
“You’d never guess,” he grinned.
I did not like this grinning. It was unusual in Gerald. It was like a crooked mask on the fine dark face. There was by ordinary no grinning froth about Gerald ... and, somehow, it crossed my mind that maybe Gerald was hard-up. I asked him, oh, tentatively, if anything was “up.”