My gaze was wavering from the rug by now. Little wonder, was it? “I meant it all right,” I got out after a while. “Do you want to hear me say my little speech over again?” Was it possible that, after all, Natica Drayton had really decided to toss Jack over, and take on a fag, warranted kind and gentle, able to be driven by any lady? But I forgot that foolish notion pretty nearly right off.
“There is a husband,” she went on, as if taking account of stock.
“There always is,” I rejoined. “Some of ’em are good and the others are bad.” I chuckled despite me, as I put in my mean little hack.
“I mean the Hartopp’s husband,” she explained.
“There is,” I said. “‘Boiler-plate’ Hartopp. His given name is James, and he prize-fights fair to middling.” All this wasn’t quite good billiards, but we’d begun wrong that night, and we might as well keep it up, thought I.
Natica Drayton was tapping her foot upon the fender. “H’m,” she mused. “Some of those horrid names sound interesting.” Then she turned to me abruptly. “I think, perhaps, you ought to go now,” she suggested.
“I think so, too,” I agreed, rising very hastily, and taking my leave.
“Have you Friday evening disengaged?” She flung this after me before I had got to the hall.
“Yes,” said I, all unthinking.
“Then we’ll do it Friday,” she said.