"You ought to be shot!" said Sangster again. He rose to his feet; he threw his unsmoked cigarette into the grate and walked towards the door.
Jimmy turned.
"Here—come back! Where are you going? Of all the bad-tempered beggars——" His face was abashed; there was a sort of wavering in his voice. He moved a step forward to overtake his friend.
Sangster looked back at him with biting contempt in his honest eyes.
"I'm fed up with you," he said. "Sick to death of you and your abominable selfishness. I—oh, what's the good of talking——?" He was gone with a slam of the door.
Jimmy dragged a chair forward and flung himself into it. His face was a study; now and then he gave a little choked exclamation of rage.
What the deuce did Sangster mean by taking such an attitude? It was like his infernal cheek. It was no business of his if he chose to get engaged to Christine and half a dozen other girls at the same time. Anyone would think he had done a shabby trick by asking her to marry him; anyone would think that there had been something disgraceful in having done so; anyone would think——
"Damn it all!" said Jimmy Challoner.
He took a cigarette and lit it; but it went out almost immediately, and he flung it into the fire and lit another.
In a minute or two he had thrown that away also; he lay back in his chair and closed his eyes.