“Waiting doesn’t worry me,” said Favell, “and I don’t think I shall have to wait very long, you know. I had a look in the dining room as I came along, and I see Max’s place is laid for dinner all right.”
“Our plans have been changed,” I said. “It’s quite possible Maxim won’t be home at all this evening.”
“He’s run off, has he?” said Favell, with a half smile I did not like. “I wonder if you really mean it. Of course under the circumstances it’s the wisest thing he can do. Gossip is an unpleasant thing to some people. It’s more pleasant to avoid it, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said.
“Don’t you?” he said. “Oh, come, you don’t expect me to believe that, do you? Tell me, are you feeling better? Too bad fainting like that at the inquest this afternoon. I would have come and helped you out but I saw you had one knight-errant already. I bet Frank Crawley enjoyed himself. Did you let him drive you home? You wouldn’t let me drive you five yards when I offered to.”
“What do you want to see Maxim about?” I asked.
Favell leaned forward to the table and helped himself to a cigarette. “You don’t mind my smoking, I suppose?” he said, “it won’t make you sick, will it? One never knows with brides.”
He watched me over his lighter. “You’ve grown up a bit since I saw you last, haven’t you?” he said. “I wonder what you have been doing. Leading Frank Crawley up the garden-path?” He blew a cloud of smoke in the air. “I say, do you mind asking old Frith to get me a whiskey-and-soda?”
I did not say anything. I went and rang the bell. He sat down on the edge of the sofa, swinging his legs, that half-smile on his lips. Robert answered the bell. “A whiskey-and-soda for Mr. Favell,” I said.
“Well, Robert?” said Favell, “I haven’t seen you for a very long time. Still breaking the hearts of the girls in Kerrith?”
Robert flushed. He glanced at me, horribly embarrassed.
“All right, old chap, I won’t give you away. Run along and get me a double whiskey, and jump on it.”
Robert disappeared. Favell laughed, dropping ash all over the floor.
“I took Robert out once on his half-day,” he said. “Rebecca bet me a fiver I wouldn’t ask him. I won my fiver all right. Spent one of the funniest evenings of my life. Did I laugh? Oh, boy! Robert on the razzle takes a lot of beating, I tell you. I must say he’s got a good eye for a girl. He picked the prettiest of the bunch we saw that night.”
Robert came back again with the whiskey-and-soda on a tray. He still looked very red, very uncomfortable. Favell watched him with a smile as he poured out his drink, and then he began to laugh, leaning back on the arm of the sofa. He whistled the bar of a song, watching Robert all the while.
“That was the one, wasn’t it?” he said, “that was the tune? Do you still like ginger hair, Robert?”
Robert gave him a flat weak smile. He looked miserable. Favell laughed louder still. Robert turned and went out of the room.
“Poor kid,” said Favell. “I don’t suppose he’s been on the loose since. That old ass Frith keeps him on a leading string.”
He began drinking his whiskey-and-soda, glancing round the room, looking at me every now and again, and smiling.
“I don’t think I shall mind very much if Max doesn’t get back to dinner,” he said. “What say you?”
I did not answer. I stood by the fireplace my hands behind my back. “You wouldn’t waste that place at the dining room table, would you?” he said. He looked at me, smiling still, his head on one side.
“Mr. Favell,” I said, “I don’t want to be rude, but as a matter of fact I’m very tired. I’ve had a long and fairly exhausting day. If you can’t tell me what you want to see Maxim about it’s not much good your sitting here. You had far better do as I suggest, and go round to the estate office in the morning.”
He slid off the arm of the sofa and came towards me, his glass in his hand. “No, no,” he said. “No, no, don’t be a brute. I’ve had an exhausting day too. Don’t run away and leave me, I’m quite harmless, really I am. I suppose Max has been telling tales about me to you?”
I did not answer. “You think I’m the big, bad wolf, don’t you?” he said, “but I’m not, you know. I’m a perfectly ordinary, harmless bloke. And I think you are behaving splendidly over all this, perfectly splendidly. I take off my hat to you, I really do.” This last speech of his was very slurred and thick. I wished I had never told Frith I would see him.