"Damn it, I thought you would be put out if you weren't told. Besides you are a woman. I thought you would have a suggestion to mend matters."
"I shouldn't for one moment think of interfering. It is essentially a matter between Mr. Neville and yourself."
"Neville? Damn it, don't you try and drag me into it."
"I entreat you to moderate your violence a little."
Selwyn said something under his breath. He was getting ruffled, and don't you make any mistake about it. It was the old story. He was too darned infernally good-natured. Too beastly unselfish. He had lived too long letting people thrust their blasted wishes down his timid throat. But he'd start a new tack from to-day. By Jove! yes, a new tack from to-day.
While he lashed himself into noble rage, Mrs. Selwyn continued to admonish. "It is exactly what I expected. The course is perfectly clear, and you come running to me. And as usual you try and shift the matter on to me with high hand and bluster."
Selwyn had flogged himself to white heat. "Here am I, a supposed big man of these parts, nagged at and brow-beaten and driven to the point of madness by a houseful of idle matchmaking women."
"I entreat you——" began Mrs. Selwyn.
"They can carry their own dirty linen to the wash themselves. I've been the public pack-animal for the last time, and I tell you so now. The girl can get herself out of her own tangle."
"Do you realise the whole camp may be listening?"