Page:Tom Beauling (1901).pdf/216

 it, man, the words! I don't know 'em."

Dunbar laughed. Beauling began to fumble with the buttons of his waistcoat. He turned to the dressing-table, and buttoned the top button into the second buttonhole, and so on. The room seemed to him like an orchard in spring. Dunbar watched him in the glass.

"Your fashion of wearing a waistcoat," he said dryly, "might impress a Bedouin, but for a dinner-party of conventional people—"

"What's wrong with it?" said Beauling. "My waistcoat is all right—what's the matter with it?"

"Consider it calmly," said Dunbar.

Beauling endeavored to do so.

"I don't see anything wrong," he said.

"Why, here," said Dunbar. He walked up to Beauling from behind—a little to one side.

"It's—" He paused.

"Well?" said Beauling.

Dunbar did not answer.

Beauling caught a glimpse of Dunbar's