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"Let's fill him with whisky," said Ninian, rising and taking hold of Gilbert's arm, and he and Henry took him and led him to the bar where they met Jimphy, looking like a lost rabbit. "Hilloa, Jimphy!" they exclaimed, and he turned gleefully to welcome them. Here at all events was something he could comprehend. He congratulated Gilbert. "Jolly good, old chap!
"Cutting a chap, damn you!" said Jimphy.... "Good Lord, I didn't know you!" "Thought you didn't. Where you going?" "Oh, nowhere. Just loafing about. Gilbert's down at Scotland Yard trying to enlist." "Is he, begad? Everybody seems to be trying to enlist. He'd much better try to get a commission. I'm going home now. You come with me, Quinny.
Jimphy and everybody! Except Mr. Boltt, of course. He's unfit or something. Aren't you, Mr. Boltt?" "Ah, if I were only a young man again, Lady Cecily!..." "But he's writing to the papers, and that's something, isn't it?" Cecily interrupted. "And I'm making mittens for the soldiers. We're all making mittens. Except Mr. Boltt, of course." "Who was the johnny who's just gone out?" Jimphy demanded.
He followed on the heels of Lord Jasper, passing through a throng of men in the passages and on the stairs, until he reached the bar. "Whisky and soda?" said Lord Jasper, and Henry nodded his head. "I hate theatres," Lord Jasper said. "Oh!" Henry replied. That seemed to be the only adequate retort to make to anything that Jimphy said. "Yes, I can't stand 'em.
"How is Lady Cecily?" Henry asked, as he and Jimphy left the Park together. "Oh, I expect she's all right," Jimphy answered. "I forgot to ask this morning, but if she'd been seedy or anything she'd have told me about it, so I suppose she's all right!" "When's this play of Farlow's coming on?" Jimphy asked on the doorstep of his house. "Wednesday," Henry answered.
He started up, and looked about the room, and while he listened, he could hear the big clock in the hall sounding three times. He was shivering, though he was not cold. In his dream, he had seen Jimphy, all bloody and broken.... "Oh, my God, how horrible!" he groaned.
Can't you understand, Cecily? Here I am with you now, but if Jimphy were to come into the room, I should have to ... to give way, to pretend that I'm not in love with you!" "I can't see what difference it makes," she said. "Jimphy and I don't interfere with each other. It's ridiculous to make all this fuss. I don't see any necessity to go about telling everybody!..."
You can come here and take me to lunch sometimes and go to the theatre with me when Jimphy wants to go to a music-hall, and ... and so on!" He could not rid himself of the notion that she was "chattering" in the Lensley style. "It would be decenter to go away together," he said. She moved away from him angrily. "You're a prig, Paddy!" she exclaimed. "You can go to Ireland. I don't care!"
He was now telling Jimphy of the glories of French Cathedrals, and Jimphy, who cared even less for French Cathedrals than he cared for English ones, was wondering just how he could change the conversation to a discussion of the latest ballet at the Empire and particularly of a girl he knew who was a perfect lady and, as a matter of fact, lived with her mother.
"Thank goodness," Henry said to the others, "a novelist doesn't get a storm of nerves on the day of publication!" Leaning over the edge of the box, he could see Lady Cecily sitting in the stalls, with Jimphy by her side ... and for a while he forgot the play and Mary and Gilbert's agitation.
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