"I know," he said, with hanging head. "It was rotten of me—but I was 'on'—I really was. And your character's all right, Jeff, with anybody who knows you—they know what a first-rate sort you are——"
"Thank you," I said stiffly. "And what about—the partner in my guilt?"
"Oh, her!" the little animal said, as if she could be left quite out of the question. Then apparently he felt the stirring of returning rectitude. "Well, Jeff, I have apologised.... I don't see what more I can do, except of course to see you all right...."
I noted the birth of the attitude I wished to create. I began to appear to let him down by gradual degrees.
Exactly how much of it was appearance you see. I abhorred the little wretch. And his renewed apologies, promises, explanations!... He had been "on" he had "simply said" to Mackie; I "should have lost my job soon in any case"; and "he'd see I was all right!" ... That was all his sense of a hideous slander! And his almost rebellious "Well, I have apologised." Good heavens, he would be putting me in the wrong presently!... Every muscle in my body was straining to be at him.
But that, I knew, would never, never do.
Presently I turned once more to him. All this, after all, was not in the least what I had come to talk to him about. It was only a screen.
"Very, well," I said at last. "What's done's done. We'll leave that for the present. Now there's something else I want to say to you. Do you know what it is?"
"How should I know?" he said, relieved that the subject was turned.
"Think...."