“I have never permitted myself to speculate,” said Jimmie. “You asked me to do you a very great service. It was a little one. You are not a man to do anything dishonourable. I concluded you had your reasons, which it would have been impertinent of me to inquire into.” “It's the usual thing,” said Morland, with a self-incriminatory shrug. “A girl.” “A love affair was obvious.” Morland spat out an exclamation of impatient disgust for himself and rose to his feet. “Heaven knows how it began--she was poor and lonely--almost a lady--and she had beauty and manners and that sort of thing above her class.” “They always have,” said Jimmie, with a pained expression. “You need n't tell me the story. It's about the miserablest on God's earth, is n't it now?” “I suppose so. Upon my soul, I'm not a beast, Jimmie!” The unwonted rarefied air of sentiment that he had been breathing for the last twelve hours had, as it were, intoxicated him. Had the letter reached him the day before, he would have left the story connected with it in the cold-storage depository where men are wont to keep such things. No one would have dreamed of its existence. But now he felt an exaggerated remorse, a craving for confession, and yet he made the naked remorseful human's instinctive clutch at palliatives. “Upon my soul, I'm not a beast, Jimmie. I swear I loved her at first. You know what it is. You yourself loved a little girl in Paris--you told me about it--did n't you?” Jimmie set his teeth, and said, “Yes.” Morland went on. “Some women have ways with them, you know. They turn you into one of those toy thermometers--you hold the bulb, and the spirit in it rises and bubbles. She got hold of me that way--I bubbled, I suppose--it was n't her fault, she was sweet and innocent. It was her nature. You artistic people call the damned thing a temperament, I believe. Anyhow I was in earnest at the beginning. Then--one always does--I found it was only a passing fancy.” “And like a passing cab it has splashed you with mud. How does the matter stand now?” “Read this,” said Morland, handing him the letter. “Dearest,” it ran, “the time is coming when you can be very good to me. Jenny.” That was all. Jimmie, holding the paper in front of him, looked up distressfully at Morland. “'The time is coming when you can be very good to me.' How confoundedly pathetic! Poor little girl! Oh, damn it, Morland, you are going to be good to her, are n't you?” “I'll do all I can. Of course I'll do all I can. I tell you I'm not a beast. Heaps of other men would n't care a hang about it. They would tell her to go to the devil. I'm not that sort.” “I know you're not,” said Jimmie. Morland lit another cigar with the air of a man whose virtues deserve some reward. “The letter can only have one interpretation. Have you known of it?” “Never dreamed of it.” “Was there any question of marriage?”