at the earliest opp. and make
poor old Derek happy?"

Jill laughed discordantly.

"Poor old Derek!" she echoed. "He has been badly treated, hasn't he?"

"Well, I wouldn't say that," said Freddie doubtfully. "You see, coming
down to it, the thing was more or less his fault, what?"

"More or less!"

"I mean to say...."

"More or less!"

Freddie glanced at her anxiously. He was not at all sure now that he
liked the way she was looking or the tone in which she spoke. He was
not a keenly observant young man, but there did begin at this point to
seep through to his brain-centres a suspicion that all was not well.

"Let me pull myself together!" said Freddie warily to his immortal
soul. "I believe I'm getting the raspberry!" And there was silence for
a space.

The complexity of life began to weigh upon Freddie. Life was like one
of those shots at squash which seem so simple till you go to knock the
cover off the ball, when the ball sort of edges away from you and you
miss it. Life, Freddie began to perceive, was apt to have a nasty
back-spin on it. He had never had any doubt when he had started, that
the only difficult part of this expedition to America would be the
finding of Jill. Once found, he had presumed that she would be
delighted to hear his good news and would joyfully accompany him home
on the next boat. It appeared now, however, that he had been too
sanguine. Optimist as he was, he had to admit that, as far as could be
ascertained with the naked eye, the jolly old binge might be said to
have sprung a leak.

He proceeded to approach the matter from another angle.

"I say!"

"Yes?"

"You do love old Derek, don't you? I mean to say, you know what I
mean, _love_ him and all that sort of rot?"

"I don't know!"

"You don't know! Oh, I say, come now! You must _know_! Pull up your
socks, old thing.... I mean, pull yourself together! You either love a
chappie or you don't."

Jill smiled painfully.

"How nice it would be if everything were as simple and straightforward
as that. Haven't you ever heard that the dividing line between love
and hate is just a thread? Poets have said so a great number of
times."

"Oh, poets!" said Freddie, dismissing the genus with a wave of the
hand. He had been compelled to read Shakespeare and all that sort of
thing at school, but it had left him cold, and since growing to man's
estate he had rather handed the race of bards the mitten. He liked
Doss Chiderdoss' stuff i