"You've let us in for a nice thing. If you had left it to me, I would have got out of that dinner somehow."
"But I didn't want to get out of it," replied the unabashed junior. "We knew the brother was pretty bad all along. I don't know that on the whole he is much worse than we imagined. But she's a ripping girl. I want to see more of her."
"You silly young ass," growled Murchison; "I believe you've fallen head over ears in love with her."
And Pomfret, one of the most mercurial and light-hearted of subalterns, answered quite gravely:
"I rather fancy I have. I've never met a girl who appealed to me in quite the same sort of way."
CHAPTER III
As a result of his visit to Rosemount, Hugh Murchison was very perturbed in his mind. He blamed himself severely for having been tempted into that rather intimate conversation at the tea-shop. Miss Burton was attractive enough, and lady-like enough, to excuse any man for taking advantage of his obvious opportunities, but he had been a fool to go farther. He ought never to have set his foot in the house of people of whom he knew nothing.
It was all Jack Pomfret's fault, he decided hastily. It was his influence, his keen desire to make the girl's acquaintance, that had weighed down his friend's prudence. For, if left to himself, Hugh was quite sure that he would have dallied and dallied till all inclination to call at Rosemount had died down.