"Oh, I don't mind a Ted-Toby scandal," said Toby serenely. "I can take care of myself."
"And of Kit--at least, it seems so, as you say."
There was a long silence, and Toby drew a vile briar pipe out of his pocket. He noticed that Lord Comber, even in his growing agitation, cast an agonized glance towards it, and, putting it back in his pocket, he lit a cigarette.
"You don't like pipes, I think?" he said. "I forgot for the moment."
Toby sat down again in the big chair and smoked placidly. He intended to get an answer, and if it was unsatisfactory (if the worm turned and refused to go), he would have to consider whether he should or should not telegraph to Jack. He felt that this would be an extreme step, and hoped he should not have to take it.
Lord Comber's reflections were not enviable. To begin with, Toby had a most uncomfortable, angular mind and an attitude towards life which will not consent to be fitted into round holes nor adapt itself to nice easy compromises and tactful smoothings over of difficult places. He was all elbows, mentally considered--elbows and unbending joints. If he intended to carry his point, he would not meet one half-way; he held horrible threats over one's head, which, if defied, he might easily carry out. His own argument he considered excellent. To telegraph to Jack implied that there was something to telegraph about, but this square, freckled brute could not or would not see it. It really was too exasperating. He himself conducted his own life so largely by the employment of tact, finesse, diplomacy (Toby would have called these lies), that it was most disconcerting to find himself in conflict with someone who not only did not employ them, but refused to recognise them as legitimate weapons. Indeed, he was in a dilemma. It was impossible to contemplate a telegram being sent to Jack: it was equally impossible to contemplate what would happen if Kit came and found him gone. And the annoyance of going, of missing this week with her, was immense. It gave him a sort of _cachet_ to be seen staying with Kit alone at a watering-place. She was more indisputably than ever on a sort of pinnacle in his world this year, and everyone would think it so very daring. That was the sort of fame he really coveted--to be in the world's eye doing rather risky things with an extremely smart woman.