“Don't know? Has she vanished?”
“Yes,” said I.
“That's the end of it, I suppose. Poor Lola! She was an awfully good sort you know!” said Dale, “and I won't deny I was hit. That's when I came such a cropper. But I realise now how right you were. I was just caught by the senses, nothing else; and when she wrote to say it was all off between us my vanity suffered—suffered damnably, old chap. I lost the election through it. Didn't attend to business. That brought me to my senses. Then Essendale took me away yachting, and I had a quiet time to think; and after that I somehow took to seeing more of Maisie. You know how things happen. And I'm jolly grateful to you, old chap. You've saved me from God knows what complications! After all, good sort as Lola is, it's rot for a man to go outside his own class, isn't it?”
“It depends upon the man—and also the woman,” said I, beginning to derive peculiar torture from the conversation.
Dale shook his wise head. “It never comes off,” said he. After a pause he laughed aloud. “Don't you remember the lecture you gave me? My word, you did talk! You produced a string of ghastly instances where the experiment had failed. Let me see, who was there, Paget, Merridew, Bullen. Ha! Ha! No, I'm well out of it, old chap—thanks to you.”
“If any good has come of this sorry business,” said I gravely, “I'm only too grateful to Providence.”
He caught the seriousness of my tone.
“I didn't want to touch on that side of it,” he said awkwardly. “I know what an infernal time you had! It must have been Gehenna. I realise now that it was on my account, and so I can never do enough to show my gratitude.”
He finished his glass of whisky and walked about the tiny room.
“What has always licked me,” he said at length, “is why she never told me she was married. It's so curious, for she was as straight as they make them. It's devilish odd!”