"Aren't you coming down into the smoking-room?"
"I am not. And, if you take my tip, you won't go either. You must be almost as much in want of a trifle of bed as I am."
"I am obliged to you. I make my own sleeping arrangements." His tone was snappy. He seated himself on the arm of a chair. "Were you in earnest in what you said to me this morning?"
"To what are you referring?"
"To what you said about Miss Jardine."
"Certainly I was in earnest."
He fixed his glance upon me in a fashion I did not relish.
"Haven't you a grain of pity? Is there nothing human about you, Townsend?"
I felt strongly that that sort of thing must cease. The idea of Lord Archibald Beaupré's mentorship was an idea not to be endured.
"There has been a good deal about your manner towards me lately, Beaupré, to which I have objected, and with good cause. You have presumed on the friendship which exists between us in a manner of which I should have thought you, of all men, would have been incapable." He flushed. I saw I had struck home. "You must excuse me saying that if you consider that the fact of our being acquainted with each other entitles you to unwarrantably interest yourself in my private affairs, I must request that that acquaintance shall cease."