Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 2.djvu/117

Rh he faced Mrs. Dallow again with the exclamation: "It's so foolish—it's so damnably foolish!"

She still said nothing, but at the end of a minute she spoke without answering him. "I shall expect you on Tuesday, and I hope you'll come by a decent train."

"What do you mean by a decent train?"

"I mean I hope you'll not leave it till the last thing before dinner, so that we can have a little walk or something."

"What's a little walk or something? Why, if you make such a point of my coming to Griffin, do you want me to come at all?"

Mrs. Dallow hesitated an instant; then she exclaimed: "I knew you hated it!"

"You provoke me so," said Nick. "You try to, I think."

"And Severals still worse. You'll get out of that if you can," Mrs. Dallow went on.

"If I can? What's to prevent me?"

"You promised Lady Whiteroy. But of course that's nothing."

"I don't care a straw for Lady Whiteroy."

"And you promised me. But that's less still."

"It is foolish—it's quite idiotic," said Nick, with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ceiling.

There was another silence, at the end of which Mrs. Dallow remarked: "You might have answered Mr. Macgeorge when he spoke to you."

"Mr. Macgeorge—what has he to do with it?"

"He has to do with your getting on a little. If you think that's the way!"