Page:The Soft Side (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1900).djvu/97

Rh and—as it presented itself—singularly obliging change of plan. 'Ah, you want to be of use to her?'

'Only if it will take her off your mind till you see her again. I don't mind telling you now,' Chilver courageously continued, 'that I'm not positively in such a hurry. I said I'd catch the train because I thought you wanted to be alone with her.'

The young men stood there now a trifle rigidly, but very expressively, face to face: Bertram Braddle, the younger but much the taller, smooth, handsome, and heavy, with the composition of his dress so elaborately informal, his pleasant monocular scowl so religiously fixed, his hat so despairingly tilted, and his usual air—innocent enough, however—of looking down from some height still greater—as every one knew about the rich, the bloated Braddles—than that of his fine stature; Chilver, slight and comparatively colourless, rather sharp than bright, but with—in spite of a happy brown moustache, scantily professional, but envied by the man whose large, empty, sunny face needed, as some one had said, a little planting—no particular 'looks' save those that dwelt in his intelligent eyes. 'And what then did you think I wanted to do?'

'Exactly what you say. To present yourself in a taking light—to deepen the impression you've been at so much trouble to make. But if you don't care for my stopping!' And tossing away the end of his cigarette with a gesture of good-humoured renouncement, Chilver moved across the marble slabs to the draughty portal that kept swinging from the street.

There were porters, travellers, other impediments in his way, and this gave Braddle an appreciable time to watch his receding back before it disappeared; the prompt consequence of which was an 'I say, Chilver!' launched after him sharply enough to make him turn round before passing out. The speaker had not otherwise stirred, and the interval of space