“That’s right. Jolly old ambassador. Very word I used myself.”
“I say, if you have come over as an ambassador with the idea of reopening negotiations with Jill on behalf of that infernal swine …”
“Old man!” protested Freddie, pained. “Pal of mine, you know.”
“If he is, after what’s happened, your mental processes are beyond me.”
“My what, old son?”
“Your mental processes.”
“Oh, ah!” said Freddie, learning for the first time that he had any.
Wally looked at him intently. There was a curious expression on his rough-hewn face.
“I can’t understand you, Freddie. If ever there was a fellow who might have been expected to take the only possible view of Underhill’s behavior in this business, I should have said it was you. You’re a public-school man. You’ve mixed all the time with decent people. You wouldn’t do anything that wasn’t straight yourself to save your life, it seems to have made absolutely no difference in your opinion of this man Underhill that he behaved like an utter cad to a girl who was one of your best friends. You seem to worship him just as much as ever. And you have travelled three thousand miles to bring a message from him to Jill—Good God! Jill!—to the effect, as far as I understand it, that he has thought it over and come to the conclusion that after all she may possibly be good enough for him!”
Freddie recovered the eye-glass which the raising of his eyebrows had caused to fall, and polished it in a crushed sort of way. Rummy, he reflected, how chappies stayed the same all their lives as they were when they were kids. Nasty, tough sort of chap Wally Mason had been as a boy, and here he was, apparently, not altered a bit. At least, the only improvement he could detect was that, whereas in the old days Wally, when in an ugly mood like this, would undoubtedly have kicked him, he now seemed content with mere words. All the same, he was being dashed unpleasant. And he was all wrong about poor old Derek. This last fact he endeavored to make clear.