"I've been telling Mrs. Wesley," he began at once, as if I had been present all the while, and he was politely lifting me into the conversation—"I've been telling Mrs. Wesley that I'm a Lost Cause."
"A lost soul," was Mrs. Wesley's amendment from the staircase. "Oh, Tom, I am so glad you have come! I thought you never would! I let him in an hour or two ago, and he has kept me here ever since."
"You were so entertaining," said my cousin, with a courteous sweep of his disengaged hand, and speaking with that correctness of enunciation which sometimes survives everything.
"Flagg," I said, stepping to his side, "you will oblige me by returning to your lodgings."
"You think I'm not all right?"
"I am sure of it."
"And you don't want me here, dear old boy?"
"No, I don't want you here. The time has come for me to be frank with you, Flagg, and I see that your mind is clear enough to enable you to understand what I say."
"I reckon I can follow you, Thomas."
"My stock of romantic nonsense about kinship and family duties, and all that, has given out, and will not be renewed."