But apparently they haven't, though it's never safe to assume anything." "Oh, don't talk like an idiot!" broke in Palliser heatedly.

"I've no patience with that sort of thing.

Do you expect me to believe that a fellow like you--a fellow who knows how to wait for his luck--would give way to a cowardly impulse and destroy himself all in a moment because things didn't go quite straight?
Man alive! I know you better than that; or if I don't, I've never known you at all." "Ah! Perhaps not!" said Conyers.
Once more he turned the key and withdrew it.

He pushed back his chair so that his face was in shadow.
"You don't know everything, you know, Hugh," he said.
"Have a smoke," said Palliser, "and tell me what you are driving at." He threw himself into a bamboo chair by the open door, the light streaming full upon him, revealing in every line of him the arrogant splendour of his youth.

He looked like a young Greek god with the world at his feet.
Conyers surveyed him with his faint, cynical smile.