“Oh, so she’s told you everything, has she?  And what did she tell you?”

“Why, that it was all over between you, broken off, you know.”

“And you’ve come to me to know if it’s true, is that it?”

“Well no, why should I?  Of course it’s true if she says so.”

Rickman reflected for a moment; the situation, he perceived, was delicate in the extreme, delicate beyond his power to deal with it.  But the god did not forsake his own, and inspiration came to him.

“You’re right there, Spinky.  Of course it’s true if she says so.”

“She seemed to think you wouldn’t mind her telling me.  She said you’d understand.”

“Oh yes, I think I understand.  Did she tell you she had broken it off?” (He was really anxious to know how she had put it.)

“Yes, but she was most awfully nice about it.  I made out—­I mean she gave me the impression—­that she did it, well, partly because she thought you wanted it off.  But that’s just what I want to be sure about.  Do you want it off, or don’t you?”

“Is that what she wants to know?”

“No.  It’s what I want to know.  What’s more, Rickets, I think I’ve got a fair right to know it, too.”

“What do you want me to say?  That I don’t want to marry Miss Walker or that I do?”

Spinks’s face flushed with the rosy dawn of an idea.  It was possible that Rickets didn’t want to marry her, that he was in need of protection, of deliverance.  There was a great deed that he, Spinks, could do for Rickets.  His eyes grew solemn as they beheld his destiny.

“Look here,” said he, “I want you to tell me nothing but the bally truth.  It’s the least you can do under the circumstances.  I don’t want it for her, well—­yes I do—­but I want it for myself, too.”

“All right, Spinky, you shall have the best truth I can give you at such uncommonly short notice.  I can’t say I don’t want to marry Miss Walker, because that wouldn’t be very polite to the lady.  But I can say I think she’s shown most admirable judgement, and that I’m perfectly satisfied with her decision.  I wouldn’t have her go back, on it for worlds.  Will that satisfy you?”

“It would if I thought you really meant it.”

“I do mean it, God forgive me.  But that isn’t her fault, poor little girl.  The whole thing was the most infernal muddle and mistake.”

“Ah—­that was what she called it—­a mistake.”  Spinks seemed to be clinging to and cherishing this word of charm.

“I’m glad for her sake that she found it out in time.  I’m not the sort of man a girl like Flossie ought to marry.  I ought never to have asked her.”

“Upon my soul, Rickets, I believe you’re right there.  That’s not saying anything against you, or against her either.”

“No.  Certainly not against her.  She’s all right, Spinky—­”

“I know, I know.”

Still Spinks hesitated, restraining his ardent embrace of the truth presented to him, held back by some scruple of shy unbelieving modesty.