Why couldn't you,
for instance, have taken on the agency of that what-d'you-call-it
car?'
'What I called it would have been nothing to what the poor devils
who bought it would have called it.'
'You could have sold hundreds of them, and the company would have
given you any commission you asked. You know just the sort of
people they wanted to get in touch with.'
'But, darling, how could I? Planting Breitstein on the club would
have been nothing compared with sowing these horrors about London.
I couldn't go about the place sticking my pals with a car which, I
give you my honest word, was stuck together with chewing-gum and
tied up with string.'
'Why not? It would be their fault if they bought a car that wasn't
any good. Why should you have to worry once you had it sold?'
It was not Lord Dawlish's lucky afternoon. All through lunch he
had been saying the wrong thing, and now he put the coping-stone
on his misdeeds. Of all the ways in which he could have answered
Claire's question he chose the worst.
'Er--well,' he said, '_noblesse oblige_, don't you know, what?'
For a moment Claire did not speak. Then she looked at her watch
and got up.
'I must be going,' she said, coldly.
'But you haven't had your coffee yet.'
'I don't want any coffee.'
'What's the matter, dear?'
'Nothing is the matter.
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