"
It brought Tommy back to earth, and he could accept her now as an old
friend he was glad to meet again. "You could not guess what I was in
pursuit of, Mrs. Jerry," he assured her, and with confidence, for
words are not usually chased down the Row.
But, though he made the sound of laughter, that terrible face which
Mrs. Jerry remembered so well, but could not give a name to, took no
part in the revelry; he was as puzzling to her as those irritating
authors who print their jokes without a note of exclamation at the end
of them. Poor Mrs. Jerry thought it must be a laugh of horrid
bitterness, and that he was referring to his dead self or something
dreadful of that sort, for which she was responsible.
"Please don't tell me," she said, in such obvious alarm that again he
laughed that awful laugh. He promised, with a profound sigh, to carry
his secret unspoken to the grave, also to come to her "At Home" if she
sent him a card.
He told her his address, but not his name, and she could not send the
card to "Occupier."
"Now tell me about yourself," said Mrs. Jerry, with charming cunning.
"Did you go away?"
"I came back a few days ago only."
"Had you any shooting?" (They nearly always threatened to make for a
distant land where there was big game.
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