Page:Walpole--portrait of man with red hair.djvu/122

 "No, no," Dunbar assured him, "I'm not going to drag you into it. You needn't be afraid of that."

"But I am in it!" Harkness answered, smiling; "I'm going back with Crispin to his house this evening!"

The effect of that upon Dunbar was fantastic. The young man jumped from his chair crying:

"You're going back?"

"Yes."

"To the house?"

"Why, yes!"

"And to-night!"

He stared down at him as though he could not believe the evidence of his ears nor of his eyes nor of anything that was his. Then he finished his whisky with a desperate gulp.

"But what's pushing you into this anyway?" he cried at last. "You don't look like the kind of man And yet there you were on the hill this afternoon, and then at the hotel and overhearing what Hesther said, and then dining with the man and his asking you He did ask you, didn't he?"

"Of course he asked me," Harkness answered. "You don't suppose I'd have gone if he didn't."

"No, I don't suppose you would," agreed Dunbar.