rday?

PHILIP.

When Robbie Roope brought me your kind greetings.

SIR TIMOTHY.

Ah, that's nice of you! [_Constrainedly._] That's--nice of you.

PHILIP.

[_Changing his position and unbending._] But tell me! I don't know yet
what you have to say to me about Madame de Chaumie--but why should you
find it embarrassing to speak of her to me? [_Gently._] We're men of
the world, you and I; and it isn't the rule of life that the prize
always goes to the most deserving. [_With animation._]

"And in the world, as in the school,
I'd say, how fate may change and shift;
The prize be sometimes with the fool,
The race not always to the swift.
The strong may yield, the good may fall,
The great man be a vulgar clown,
The knave be lifted over all,
The kind cast pitilessly down."

So sang one of the noblest gentlemen who have ever followed my calling!

[_There is a brief silence, and then_ SIR TIMOTHY _rises
abruptly and walks to the fireplace._ PHILIP _looks
after him, perplexed._

SIR TIMOTHY.

[_Facing the fire._] Mr. Mackworth----

PHILIP.

Eh?

SIR TIMOTHY.

I saw Bertram Filson last night--her brother.

PHILIP.

[_Pricking up his ears._] You did? Where?

SIR TIMOTHY.

At the club--the Junior Somerset. He came in late, looking a bit out of
gear, and ate a mouthful of dinner and drank a whole bottle of Pommery;
and afterwards he joined me in the smoking-room and--and was
exceedingly communicative.

PHILIP.

[_Attentively._] Oh?

SIR TIMOTHY.

I didn't encourage him to babble--[_turning_] 'twas he that insisted on
confiding to me what had occurred----

PHILIP.

Occurred?

SIR TIMOTHY.

That you and Madame de Chaumie had had a serious difference, and that
there's small prospect of its being bridged over.

PHILIP.

[_Glaring._] Oh, he confided _that_ to you, did he, Sir Timothy?

SIR TIMOTHY.

He did.

PHILIP.

[_Rising and pacing up and down on the left._] And what the de