"Do you remember our conversation the night you came ?" "More or less." "I mean when you and I were alone together, before we turned in." "Oh, yes.

I remember something about it." "It would be too silly to expect you to remember much," he went on after a pause, with a more delicate irony than heretofore.

"But, as a matter of fact, I believe I said it was all rot that people talked about the impossibility of being mere pals with a woman, and all that sort of thing." "I believe you did.'" "Well, then, _that_ was rot.

That's all." I turned round with my razor in mid-air, "My dear fellow!" I exclaimed.
"Quite funny, isn't it ?" he laughed, but rather harshly, while his mountain bronze deepened under my scrutiny.
"You are not in earnest, Bob!" said I; and on the word his laughter ended, his colour went.
"_I_ am," he answered through his teeth.

"_Are you_ ?" Never was war carried more suddenly into the enemy's country, or that enemy's breath more completely taken away than mine.