At the Colonial Club John piloted Phillip upstairs to the big, comfortable and unpretentious reading-room where, over a pot of tea and through the gray smoke of a couple of very black cigars, they discussed subjects as multifarious and inconsequent as those suggested by the walrus.
Phillip did not encounter Everett Kingsford until Monday night, at the dinner table. Phillip looked sheepish, and Everett, rising ceremoniously, saluted him gravely.
“Sir, I will apologize if you will,” he said.
“I didn’t recognize you at all,” declared Phillip earnestly. “I didn’t know it was you until North told me yesterday. I’m awfully sorry, honestly.”
“Say no more. But let this be a warning to you never to raise your hand to your elders again.”
“You—you weren’t hurt, were you?” asked Phillip anxiously. The thought of having engaged in combat with Betty’s brother was harrowing and savoured of sacrilege.
“Not a bit. How about you?”
“Nor I.” Presently he asked: “Your mother is well, I hope?”
“Quite.” And Kingsford grinned exasperatingly. “And so is Miss Wayland, I believe; and Muir. And so am I.”
Phillip applied himself diligently to his soup and strove to look unconcerned.