"What's that?" growled Blake.
"Young Ashton's a bally ass," explained Lord James. "He bolted down whole what I said about your attack of bile. Others, however, may not be so credulous or blind. You'd better keep close till you look a bit less knocked-up. There's no need that what's happened should come to Miss Leslie."
"Think so, do you?" said Blake. "Well, I don't."
"What's that?" put in Griffith.
"There's not going to be any frame-up over this, that's what," rejoined Blake, reaching for his hat and suitcase. "Soon 's I get a shave I'm going out to tell her."
"Gad, old man!" protested Lord James. "But you can't do that—it's impossible! You surely do not realize—"
"I don't, eh?" broke in Blake bitterly. "I'm up against it. I know it,
and you know it. You don't think I'm going to do the baby act, do you?
I've failed to make good. Think I'm going to lie to her about it?
No!—nor you neither!"
His friends exchanged a look of helplessness. They knew that tone only too well. Yet Lord James sought to avert the worst.
"Might have known you'd be an ass over it," he commented. "Best I can do, I presume, is to go along and explain to her my view of what started you off."
"Best nothing. You'll keep out of this. It's none of your funeral."