laurels and of poppies into the strongest bond in the world.

I would simply have nothing to do with it.

But there was no harm I asking Armour to dine with me; I sent the
note off by messenger after breakfast and told the steward to put a
magnum of Pommery to cool at seven precisely. I had some idea, I
suppose, of drinking with Armour to his eternal discomfiture. Then
I went to the office with a mind cleared of responsibility and
comfortably pervaded with the glow of good intentions.

The moment I saw the young man, punctual and immediate and a little
uncomfortable about the cuffs, I regretted not having asked one or
two more fellows. It might have spoiled the occasion, but it would
have saved the situation. That single glance of my accustomed eye--
alas! that it was so well accustomed--revealed him anxious and
screwed up, as nervous as a cat, but determined, revealed--how well
I knew the signs!--that he had something confidential and important
and highly personal to communicate, a matter in which I could, if I
only would, be of the greatest possible assistance. From these
appearances twenty years had taught me to fly to any burrow, but
your dinner-table offers no retreat; you are hoist, so to speak, on
your own carving-fork. There are men, of course, and even women,
who have scruples about taking advantage of so intimate and
unguarded an opportunity, but Armour, I rapidly decided, was not one
of these. His sophistication was progressing, but it had not
reached that point. He wanted something--I flew instantly to the
mad conclusion that he wanted Dora. I did not pause to inquire why
he should ask her of me. It had seemed for a long time eminently
proper that anybody who wanted Dora should ask her of me. The