"I have a vague recollection of playing the fool." "You were particularly rude about yourself," said Wratislaw.
The young man laughed.

"It's a way I have sometimes.

It's an awkward thing when a man's foes are of his own household." The others seemed to see a catch in his mirth, a ring as of something hollow.

He opened some letters, and looked up from one with a twitching face and a curious droop of the eyelids.

"Miss Wishart is all right," he said.