They drove back in silence and there was something like constraint between them.
“My God! that girl’s plucky,” said Ronny once.
Jimmy agreed.
“Gerry was my friend,” said Ronny. “It’s up to me to keep an eye on her.”
“Oh! rather. Of course.”
They said no more.
On returning to Chimneys, Jimmy was waylaid by a tearful Lady Coote.
“That poor boy,” she kept repeating. “That poor boy.”
Jimmy made all the suitable remarks he could think of.
Lady Coote told him at great length various details about the decease of various dear friends of hers. Jimmy listened with a show of sympathy and at last managed to detach himself without actual rudeness.
He ran lightly up the stairs. Ronny was just emerging from Gerald Wade’s room. He seemed taken aback at the sight of Jimmy.
“I’ve been in to see him,” he said. “Are you going in?”
“I don’t think so,” said Jimmy, who was a healthy young man with a natural dislike to being reminded of death.
“I think all his friends ought to.”
“Oh! do you?” said Jimmy, and registered to himself an impression that Ronny Devereux was damned odd about it all.
“Yes. It’s a sign of respect.”