“Not she. You would like a new experience.”
Claude yawned, and blinked his long dark eyes in a carefully Eastern manner.
“I am afraid there is no such thing left for me,” he said with an elaborate dreariness. “Still, if your aunt will invite me, I will come. Of course you will accompany me, I must have a chaperon.”
“Of course.”
“Ah!” Claude said, as a footman came softly into the room, “here is our absinthe. Now, Jimmy, please do forget your horrible football, and I will teach you to be decadent.”
“As my aunt will teach you to be young—you old boy.”
II
“Mr Haddon has left, sir,” said the footman, standing by Claude's bedside in the detached manner of the well-bred domestic. “Here is a note for you, sir; I was to give it you the first thing.”
And he handed it on a salver.