“Must I?” he said, in the tone of a person who is ordered not to leave the sinking ship.

“A gentleman has to,” I said.

He quavered out a sort of acquiescence, and then asked me for the loan of a white tie.  I should have loved to give him a bowstring instead, with somebody who knew how to operate it.  He was a fluff, that fellow—­a tarnation fluff!

IV

It was a pretty glum evening all round.  Most of them thought that Jones had got the chilly mitt.  Eleanor looked pale and undecided, not knowing what to make of Jones’ death’s-head face.  She was resentful and pitying in turns, and I saw all the material lying around for a first-class conflagration.  Freddy was a bit down on me, too, saying that a smoother method would have ironed out Jones, and that I had been headlong and silly.  She cried over it, and wouldn’t kiss me in the dark; and I was goaded into saying—­Well, the course of true love ran in bumps that night.  There was only one redeeming circumstance, and that was my managing to keep Jones and Eleanor apart.  I mean that I insisted on being number three till at last poor Eleanor said she had a headache, and forlornly went up to bed.

Jones was still asleep when I got up the next morning at six and dressed myself quietly so as not to awake him.  It was now Monday, and you can see for yourself there was no time to spare.  I gave the butler a dollar, and ordered him to say that unexpected business had called me away without warning, but that I should be back by luncheon.  I rather overdid the earliness of it all.  At least, I hove off 1892 Eighth Avenue at eight-fifteen A. M. I loitered about; looked at pawnshop windows; gave a careful examination to a forty-eight-dollars-ninety-eight-cent complete outfit for a four-room flat; had a chat with a policeman; assisted at a runaway; advanced a nickel to a colored gentleman in distress; had my shoes shined by another; helped a child catch an escaped parrot—­and still it wasn’t nine!  Idleness is a grinding occupation, especially on Eighth Avenue in the morning.

Mrs. Jones was a thin, straight-backed, brisk old lady, with a keen tongue, and a Yankee faculty for coming to the point.  I besought her indulgence, and laid the whole Eleanor matter before her—­at least, as much of it as seemed wise.  I appeared in the role of her son’s warmest admirer and best friend.

“Surely you won’t let Harry ruin his life from a mistaken sense of his duty to you?”

“Duty, fiddlesticks!” said she.  “He’s going to marry Bertha McNutt!”

“But he doesn’t want to marry Bertha McNutt!”

“Then he needn’t marry anybody.”

She seemed to think this a triumphant answer.  Indeed, in some ways I must confess it was.  But still I persevered.

“It puts me out to have him shilly-shallying around like this,” she said.  “I’ll give him a good talking to when he gets back.  This other arrangement has been understood between Mrs. McNutt and myself for years.”