"What an infernal mess!" he exclaimed. "Come along out into the sitting-room, Julien. I want to talk to you."
"I should like to know how the devil you got in here!" Sir Julien muttered. "I told the fellow downstairs that no one was to be allowed up."
"He did try to make himself disagreeable," the newcomer replied. "However, here I am--that's enough."
"Get on with your packing, Richards," he directed, "and let me know when you have finished."
Sir Julien followed his visitor into the sitting-room, closing the door behind him. His manner was not in the least cordial.
"Look here, Kendricks, old fellow," he said, "I don't want to be rude, but I am not in the humor to talk to any one. I have had a rotten week of it and just about as much as I can stand. Help yourself to a whiskey and soda, say what you have to say and then go."
The newcomer nodded. He helped himself to the whiskey and soda, but he seemed in no hurry to speak. On the contrary, he settled himself down in an easy-chair with the appearance of a man who had come to stay.
"Julien," he remarked presently, "you are up against it--up against it rather hard. Don't trouble to interrupt me. I know pretty well all about it. I said from the first you'd have to resign. There wasn't any other way out of it."
"Quite right," Julien agreed. "There wasn't. I've finished up everything to-day--resigned my office, applied for the Chiltern Hundreds, and I am going to clear out of the country to-night."
"And all because you wrote a foolish letter to a woman!" Kendricks murmured, half to himself. "By the bye, there's no doubt about the letter, I suppose?"
"There's nothing that the Press can do to set you right?"
"Great heavens, no!" Julien declared. "No one can help me. I've no one to blame but myself. I wrote the letter--there the matter ends."
"And she passed it on to that shocking little bounder of a husband of hers! What a creature! Did it ever occur to you that it was a plot?"
"You were in Carraby's way," Kendricks continued, producing a pipe from his pocket and leisurely filling it. "There was no getting past you and you were a young man. It's a dirty business."
"If you don't mind," Julien said coldly, "we won't discuss it any further. So far as I am concerned, the whole matter is at an end. I was compelled to take part in to-day's mummery. I hated it--that they all knew. I suppose it's foolish to mind such things, David," he went on bitterly, taking up a cigarette and throwing himself into a chair, "but a year ago--it was just after I came back from Berlin and you may remember it was the fancy of the people to believe that I had saved the country from war--they cheered me all the way from Whitehall to the Mansion House. To-day there was only a dull murmur of voices--a sort of doubting groan. I felt it, Kendricks. It was like Hell, that ride!"