"Because you don't understand yourselves. You seem to have every quality and fault crammed into your skins with no discrimination as to how to sort them. You are not self-conscious like we are and afraid of looking like fools--so whatever is uppermost bursts out. If one of us had half your brains he would never have said an idiot thing completely contrary to his whole natural bent like that, just because he felt down on his luck for the moment." Verisschenzko laughed outright. "Go ahead, Denzil--let off steam! I'm done in!" "Well, don't be such a damned fool again!" "I won't--how is my Lady Amaryllis?" Denzil looked at him keenly. "Why do you ask?" "Because she has written to me, and I am going down to see her--" "Then you know how she is?" "I guess. Look here, Denzil, do try and be frank with me. You are acquainted with me and know whether I am to be trusted or not. You are aware that I love her with the spirit. You and the worthy husband are off to be killed, and yet just because you are so damned reserved English, you can't bring yourself to do the sensible thing and tell me all about it so that if you go to glory I could look after her rights and--the child's--and take care of her. It is you who are a fool really, not I! Because I get a little drunk with my moods and talk about suicide, that is froth, but I should not bottle up a confidence because it's 'not the thing' to talk about a woman--even though it's for her benefit and protection to do so. I've more common sense. Some difficult questions might crop up later with Ferdinand Ardayre, and I want to have the real truth made plain to myself so that I can crush him. If you've some cards up your sleeve that I don't know of, I can't defend Amaryllis so well." Denzil put down his knife and fork for a moment; he realised the truth of what his friend said, but it was very difficult for him to speak all the same. "Tell me what you know, Stepan, and I'll see what I can do. It is not because I don't trust you, but it is against everything in me to talk." "Convention again, and selfishness. You are thinking more about the Englishman's point of view than the good of the woman you love--because I feel partly from her letter that you do love her and that she loves you--and I surmise that the child is yours, not John's, though how this miracle has been accomplished, since it was clear that you had never seen her until the night at the Carlton, I don't pretend to guess!" Denzil drank down his champagne, and then he made Verisschenzko understand in a few words--the Russian's imagination filled in the details. He lit a cigarette between the course and puffed rings of smoke. "So poor John devised this plan, and yet he loves her--he must indeed be obsessed by the family!" "He is--he is a frightfully reserved person too, and I am sure has frozen Amaryllis from the first day."