There was a pause.
“Why don't you do it.” said Albert, nastily. “Five pounds is nothing to you.”
“Why should I?”
“Ah! Why should you?”
It would be useless to assert that Mr. Potter's tone was friendly. It stung Roland. It seemed to him that Muriel was looking at him in an unpleasantly contemptuous manner.
In some curious fashion, without doing anything to merit it, he had apparently become an object of scorn and derision to the party.
“All right, then, I will,” he said suddenly.
“Easy enough to talk,” said Albert.
Roland strode with a pale but determined face to the spot where M. Feriaud, beaming politely, was signing a picture post-card.
Some feeling of compunction appeared to come to Muriel at the eleventh hour.