"
"He might at least have had the grace to deny it, if he could," another
man said. "It leaves us in a devilish awkward fix as it is. We can't
drop the matter, and if he shouldn't be guilty"--
"Oh, he's guilty, fast enough," the Secretary interrupted, his little
green eyes shining under their fat lids. "He's one of the set that have
been playing poker in the club until it's begun to be talked about
outside, and I saw him go out with Snaffle that night myself."
There was some deliberation, some doubting, and some hesitation in
regard to the proper course in such a case. The committee felt that
their own dignity had suffered, that their authority should be
asserted, and their majesty avenged. Mr. Staggchase was the most
lenient in his views of the situation, and even he admitted that
whether Fenton were innocent of the offence with which he was charged
or not, he had at least treated the committee most cavalierly, and
against the ground taken by most of the members, that if Fenton had
been able to deny the charge he would have done so, he could only
reply,--
"I don't think that at all follows. In the first place he wasn't asked.
He is just the man to feel that a summons before this committee is in
itself a pretty severe reprimand, as plenty of men would. He's high
spirited and sensitive as the devil, and there was nothing in what he
said to-day that wasn't compatible to my mind with his being perfectly
innocent.
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