"Mind my queen, eh? She takes some minding, that lady does. I feel I need a special eye at the end of my nose, to keep track of her. Come out of it, old lady. I'm not very bright at handling royalty, that's a fact."
Somers was now silent. He felt he had made a faux pas, and was rebuffed. They played for some time, Jack talking to himself mostly in that facetious strain which one just had to get used to in him, though Somers occasionally found it tiring.
Then after a time Jack put his hands into his lap, and looked up at Somers.
"You mustn't think I get the wind up, you know," he said, "if you ask me a question. You can ask me what you like, you know. And when I can tell you, I'll tell you. I know you'd never come shoving your nose in like a rat from under the skirting board when nobody's looking."
"Even if I seem to," said Somers, ironically.
"No, no, you don't seem to. And when I can tell you, I'll do so. I know I can trust you."
Somers looked up wondering, and met the meditative dark eyes of the other man resting on his face.
"There's some of us chaps," said Jack, "who've been through the war and had a lick at Paris and London, you know, who can tell a man by the smell of him, so to speak. If we can't see the colour of his aura, we can jolly well size up the quality of it. And that's what we go by. Call it instinct or what you like. If I like a man, slap out, at the first sight, I'd trust him into hell, I would."
"Fortunately you haven't anything very risky to trust him with," laughed Somers.
"I don't know so much about that," said Jack.
"When a man feels he likes a chap, and trusts him, he's risking all he need, even by so doing. Because none of us likes to be taken in, and to have our feelings thrown back in our faces, as you may say, do we?"
"We don't," said Somers grimly.
"No, we don't. And you know what it means to have them thrown back in your face. And so do I. There's a lot of the people here that I wouldn't trust with a thank-you, I wouldn't. But then there's some that I would. And mind you, taking all for all, I'd rather trust an
