“I had almost forgotten. For Miss Brookes's sake, I refrain. Do you also, for her sake, cease to provoke me.”
Charlie hesitated for a moment, then rushing to the door, he said: “I, too, for Miss Brookes's sake, refrain, and I give you three seconds to clear out.”
In attempting to carry out the injunction Willy nearly fell in the bath. Frank had to bite his lip to avoid a smile, and he stalked out of the room assuming his most arrogant air.
“I think, on the whole, we got the best of it,” he said as they went down stairs.
“That's the worst of tackling a man in his own room--if he tells you to go, and you don't go, he can ring for the servants.”
“I was as nearly as possible going into the bath.”
“Yes, a touch more and down you'd have gone.” Frank laughed, and Willy laughed, “and that fellow in his nightshirt fishing you out!”
Frank asked Willy to lunch with him at Mutton's, and he ordered a bottle of champagne in honour of the day.
“I say, just fancy pulling you out of the bath, and wiping you with a towel. I can see you dripping!”
“Don't set me off again. Let me enjoy my cutlets.”
“By Jove! there's something I hadn't thought of.”
“We must be off. We must tell Maggie what has happened before he has time to communicate with her. What is the next train to Southwick?”
“It was after twelve when we saw him, he won't have time to catch that. We must be off. Waiter, the bill, and be quick. Look sharp, Willy, finish the bottle, pity to waste it.”
“What a nuisance women are, to be sure. Just as I was enjoying my cutlet! I can't walk fast in this weather, I should make myself ill.”
“What a fellow you are, you never think of the expense. I don't know where I should be if I were as reckless as you are.”
“Supposing he were at the station. It would be rather a sell if we went down by the same train! What should we do? He would surely never attempt to force his way in!”
“I don't think he would attempt that. If he did, we should have to send for the police.”
The young men strove to decide how the news should be broken to Maggie. But they had arranged nothing before they arrived at Southwick, and Frank stopped Willy time after time by the footpath, until at last in despair the latter said: “We must make haste; there's another train in twenty minutes.”