"Not quite, I hope," he replied in a dignified way. "When last you spoke to me about Phyllis Gedge, I really didn't know my own mind. I am not a cad and the thought of—of anything wrong never entered my head. On the other hand, marriage seemed out of the question."
"I remember," said I, "you talked some blithering rot about her being a symbol."
"I am quite willing to confess I was a fool," he admitted gracefully. "And I merited your strictures."
His reversion to artificiality annoyed me. I'm far from being of an angelic disposition.
"My dear boy," I cried. "Do, for God's sake, talk human English, and not the New Oxford Dictionary."
He flushed angrily, snapped an impatient finger and thumb, and marched away to the gravel path. I sang out sharply:
"Randall!"
He turned. I cried:
"Come here at once."
He came with sullen reluctance. Afterwards I was rather tickled at realizing that the lame old war-dog had so much authority left. If he had gone defiantly off, I should have felt rather a fool.