You can't have it both ways."
He looked at me like a hunted stag. "But, Reggie, old man! Percy! He
asks riddles at breakfast."
"I don't care."
"Hilda can't stand him."
"It doesn't matter. You must invite him. It's not a case of what you
like or don't like. It's your duty."
He struggled with his feelings for a bit. "Very well," he said in a
crushed sort of voice.
At dinner that night he said to Hilda: "I'm going to ask Amelia's
brother down to spend a few days. It is so long since we have seen
him."
Hilda didn't answer at once. She looked at him in rather a curious sort
of way, I thought. "Very well, dear," she said.
I was deuced sorry for the poor girl, but I felt like a surgeon. She
would be glad later on, for I was convinced that in a very short while
poor old Harold must crack under the strain, especially after I had put
across the coup which I was meditating for the very next evening.
It was quite simple. Simple, that is to say, in its working, but a
devilish brainy thing for a chappie to have thought out. If Ann had
really meant what she had said at lunch that day, and was prepared to
stick to her bargain and marry me as soon as I showed a burst of
intelligence, she was mine.
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