Eddy’s teeth began to chatter—perhaps with the cold.
“You confounded fool,” he said, “did you give them the chance of identifying you? I didn’t think you would have been such an ass.”
“As for that,” cried Johnson, “I’m square. I’ve only got to say it was given me by you, my fine young fellow. By George, I never had no suspicion. And p’raps it aint that—p’raps it’s something else; but it looks fishy seeing that fellow in the middle of all the folks dancing. It has given me a turn! I hope, Master Eddy, for your own sake, as you have not been at it again.”
“Oh, what’s that to you?” cried Eddy impatiently. He was biting his lower lip till it bled, unconsciously to himself.
“It might be a great deal to me,” said Johnson, “if it is not on the square. They’ve a set of queer laws of their own in Scotland: you never know where you are with them; and you didn’t trouble yourself very much to get me partners, Mr. Eddy. Oh, ah, didn’t see me; tell that to them as will believe it.”
“If you think you are in danger, Johnson, from the arrival of that fellow,” said Eddy, “you’d better scuttle. They don’t understand a joke these bank men.”
“A joke,” cried Johnson. “Me that am on the square if ever a man was! and you that—”
“Have nothing at all to do with it,” said Eddy with cool superiority. “If you think that you’re likely to get into trouble, take my advice and walk home. I’ll pitch you out a coat, and it’s a fine night. You should start to-morrow, as soon as it’s day; and I advise you to get over the hills to Kilrossie, and take the boat there. Good-night—it’s cold standing out here jabbering about nothing. You should never have come; and how dared you touch a lady, you little snob!” Eddy cried.
“By George,” cried the other; and then he added with complacency in his tone: “If it’s Miss Saumarez, she is a stunner, Master Eddy. It was she—that offered to me.”
“You confounded, miserable little cad,” said Eddy, furiously driving him back among the bushes with a sudden blow. But he stole back to the house on the outskirts of the crowd, and seizing the first coat he could find, pitched it out of a window above, on Johnson’s head. He had humanity enough, though he was not unwilling to sacrifice the scapegoat, to give him something warm to wrap himself in. After this he returned to the ball-room, with a thousand apologies to his partner, and eloquent description of the difficulty he had found in so arranging the curtains as to keep the draught from Lady Jean. “The shortest way would have been to shut the window, I know,” said Eddy, “but we can’t have the ball-room made into a black hole of Calcutta, can we? So I compromised matters, as I always do.”