“Wal—­I didn’t lie,” said Jasperson defiantly; “I up and told her the truth:  that you had beer for supper, and claret wine, or mebbe sherry wine, or mebbe both for dinner, and that you took a toddy when you felt like it, an’ that there was champagne down cellar, an’ foreign liquors in queer bottles, an’ Scotch whisky, an’—­everything.  She as’t questions and I answered them—­like an idiot!  Gen’lemen, the shame you feel for me is discounted by the shame I feel for myself.  I’d ought to have told Birdie that your affairs didn’t concern her; I’d ought to have said that you was honnerable gen’lemen whom I’m proud to call my intimate friends; I’d ought to have said a thousand things, but I sot there, and said-nothin’!”

He was standing as he spoke, emphasising his periods with semaphoric motions of his right arm.  When he had finished he sank quite overcome upon the big divan, and covered his flushed face with a pair of small hands.  He was profoundly moved, and Ajax appeared less solidly complacent than usual.  I reflected, not without satisfaction, that I had done what I could to keep Jasperson and the Grand Secretary apart.

“This is very serious,” said Ajax, after a significant pause.  “I—­I feel, Jasperson, that this engagement was brought about by—­me.”

“It’s a fact,” assented our hired man.  “And that’s what makes me feel so mean right now.  Boys, I love that woman so that I dassn’t go agin her.”

Ajax rose in his might and confronted the trembling figure upon the divan.  My brother’s nickname was given to him at school in virtue of his great size and strength.  Standing now above Jasperson, his proportions seemed even larger than usual.  The little dandy in his smug black garments with his diamond stud gleaming in the ivy-bosomed shirt (his rings had been given to Miss Birdie), with his features wilting like the wild pansies in the lapel of his coat, dwindled to an amorphous streak beneath the keen glance of my burly brother.

“Do you really love her?” said Ajax, in his deepest bass.  “Or do you fear her, Jasperson?  Answer honestly.”

The small man writhed.  “I dun’no’,” he faltered at last.  “By golly!  I dun’no’.”

“Then I do know,” replied my brother incisively:  “you’ve betrayed yourself, Jasperson.  You’re playing the worm.  D’you hear?  The worm!  I once advised you to wiggle up to the bird, now I tell you solemnly to wiggle away, before it’s too late.  I’ve been a fool, and so have you.  For the past three weeks I’ve had my eye on you, and I suspected that you’d fallen a victim to an ambitious and unscrupulous woman.  You’ve lost weight, man; and you’ve no flesh to spare.  Marry Miss Dutton, and you’ll be a scarecrow within a year, and require the services of the mortician within two!  I got you into this infernal scrape, and, by Heaven I I’ll get you out of it.”

“But what will the neighbours say?” stammered Jasperson, sitting upright.  At my brother’s words his pendulous nether lip had stiffened, and now his pale blue eyes were quickening with hope and vitality.  He arranged his white satin tie, that had slipped to one side, and smoothed nervously the nap of the broadcloth pants, while Ajax clad in rough grey flannels took a turn up and down our sitting-room.