"Yes!" I said, "we were—talking about women."
"Whose women?"
"Yours." I looked him steadily in the eye.
He started, but recovered himself.
"Which of 'em?" he inquired as he flung himself into a chair and looked around for a match for the cigarette which he took from a jewel-studded gold case. "I am rather well endowed with them at present. What were you saying?"
I repeated my remark about the two-establishment gentry. His face flushed angrily; but my steady eye held him in check and he took a long, inhaling breath.
"Well, I don't give a blank what you think about it, or anything else." He expelled the smoke from his lungs.
"Perhaps—but that does not affect the principle. It stands. You may not care about the Rock of Gibraltar; but it stands and is the key to the situation."
He was in a livid rage, and I was prepared for the attack which I expected him to make; but he restrained himself. His forte was insolence.
"You teach Sunday-school, don't you?"