Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 5.pdf/452

Rh get up emotion as they do, if my feet were being flayed. Cheerful home, eh? For holidays."

"Where's—the principal gentleman?" asked Melville a little grimly. "In London?"

"Unprincipled gentleman, I call him," said Fred. "He's stopping down here at the Métropole. Stuck."

"Down here? Stuck?"

"Rather. Stuck and set about."

My cousin tried for sidelights. "What's his attitude?" he asked.

"Slump," said Fred with intensity.

"This little blow-off has rather astonished him," he explained. "When he wrote to say that the election didn't interest him for a bit, but he hoped to pull around"

"You said you didn't know what he wrote."

"I do that much," said Fred. "He no more thought they'd have spotted that it meant Miss Waters than a baby. But women are so thundering sharp, you know. They're born spotters. How it'll all end"

"But why has he come to the Métropole?"

"Middle of the stage, I suppose," said Fred.

"What's his attitude?"

"Says he's going to see Adeline and explain everything—and doesn't do it Puts it off. And Adeline, as far as I can gather, says that if he doesn't come down soon, she's hanged if she'll see him, much as her heart may be broken, and all that, if she doesn't. You know."

"Naturally," said Melville, rather inconsecutively. "And he doesn't?"

"Doesn't stir."