I gave him a plain hint. “Sir Robert, like Lord Chesterfield, when he was so ill last year, if I do not press you to remain it is because I must rehearse my funeral obsequies.”
His laugh rang merrily. Coming forward a step or two, he flung a leg across the back of a chair.
“Egad, you’re not very hospitable, my friend. Or isn’t this your evening at home?” he fleered.
I watched him narrowly, answering nothing.
“Cozy quarters,” he said, looking round with polite interest. “May I ask whether you have taken them for long?”
“The object of your visit, sir,” I demanded coldly.
“There you gravel me,” he laughed. “I wish I knew the motives for my visit. They are perhaps a blend—some pique, some spite, some curiosity, and faith! a little admiration, Mr. Montagu.”
“All of which being presumably now satisfied——”
“But they’re not, man! Far from it. And so I accept the courteous invitation you were about to extend me to prolong my call and join you in a glass of wine.”
Seeing that he was determined to remain willy-nilly, I made the best of it.