“I thought this infernal business was over and done with.”
He tore open the envelope, read the contents, then tilted his hat to the back of his head, and sitting down on one of the dilapidated straight-backed chairs of the leather suite, looked at Jimmie in great perplexity. In justice to the man it must be said that anger had vanished.
“I suppose you know what these letters mean that you have been taking in for me?”
“I have never permitted myself to speculate,” said Jimmie. “You asked me to do you a very great service. It was a little one. You are not a man to do anything dishonourable. I concluded you had your reasons, which it would have been impertinent of me to inquire into.”
“It's the usual thing,” said Morland, with a self-incriminatory shrug. “A girl.”
“A love affair was obvious.”
Morland spat out an exclamation of impatient disgust for himself and rose to his feet.
“Heaven knows how it began—she was poor and lonely—almost a lady—and she had beauty and manners and that sort of thing above her class.”
“They always have,” said Jimmie, with a pained expression. “You need n't tell me the story. It's about the miserablest on God's earth, is n't it now?”
“I suppose so. Upon my soul, I'm not a beast, Jimmie!”