"Can you explain this, Arthur?" I asked.
He sat down too, and began to tap with his shoe upon the carpet.
"Oh, I don't know," he said sullenly. "You were the only man in the
room, Kirby, to whom she gave more than one dance."
"That's as may be. I suppose you don't propose to expostulate with the
lady herself? And, by the way, I always thought that it wasn't exactly
form to discuss these things in the way you appear to have been doing."
That got Arthur on the mark. His face grew very white and he sat
perfectly still.
Then Pat heaved himself round.
"She's not for you, at any rate," he said. "They will marry her to a
duke or one of the Princes."
Suddenly the humor of all this struck me forcibly and I lay back in my
chair and burst into a peal of laughter.
"That's quite likely," I said, "though I don't think, what I have seen
of Mr. Morse, that he is likely to have ambitions that way, and I am
quite certain that Miss Morse will marry the man she wants to marry and
no one else, whether he is a thoroughbred or hairy at the heels. I think
all this talk on your part--remember you began it, Pat--is perfectly
disgraceful, to say nothing of its utter childishness. As for your
saying that a young lady whom I have met for the first time to-night and
danced with twice, is not for me, it's a damnable piece of impertinence
that you should dare to insinuate that I look upon her in the way you
suggest."