“Yes, she offered it,” said Bee, sitting on a little table and tucking her feet on a chair.  “She offered it to you just to see if you’d take it—­just to see how far you would go.  You haven’t known my sister very long, have you?  Why, she’d no more let you have her room than I would let Jimmie turn himself out a second time for you.  If you stay to-night you’ll be the one to sleep in the dining-room on that narrow bench.”

“Oh, I say,” he said, turning still redder, “I can’t do that, you know.  It would be so very uncomfortable.  It is very narrow.”

“You can lie on your side,” said Bee.  “You aren’t too thick through that way, and we three women have decided to allow Jimmie to go to bed early to-night.  We’ll make it as comfortable as we can for you, and you’ll get fully three hours’ sleep, perhaps four.  It is all Jimmie would get if he slept there.”

“Why, I don’t believe that the old man will let me sleep there.  I think he’d rather I had his room.  He and his wife were so awfully good to me when I was in America.  I stayed two months at their place and they entertained me royally.”

“Where’s your wife?” I said, suddenly.

“She’s in our town house,” he answered.

“And that’s in Upper Brooke Street?” said Bee.

“And where’s your sister, the Honourable Eleanor?” I said.

“What’s that got to do with it?” said our friend.

“Nothing,” I said.  “I just wondered if you’d noticed that, every single time we have been in London for the past two years, neither your sister nor your wife has ever called on Mrs. Jimmie; although, as you have just admitted, you stayed two months with them in America.  All that you have done in return for the mountain trip that Jimmie arranged for you, taking you in a private car to hunt big game, taking you fishing and arranging for you to see everything in America that you wanted, when you know that Jimmie isn’t rich judged by the largest fortunes in America—­all, all I say, that you have done for him in return for everything he did for you was to put him up at your club and take them to the races twice, and even though you saw your wife at a distance you never introduced them, although once you stopped and spoke to her.  Now, what do you think of yourself?”

“I think—­I think,” he stammered.

“No, you don’t think,” said Bee.  “You flatter yourself.”

He stared at us helplessly, but we were enjoying ourselves too maliciously to let up on him.

“I never was talked to so in my life,” he said.

“No, perhaps not,” I said, pleasantly.  “But it has done you good, hasn’t it?  Confess now, don’t you feel a little better?”

His face, which was very red at all times, grew a little more claret coloured, and he evidently wanted very much to get angry, but Bee and I were so very cheerful, almost affectionate in our manner of mentally skinning him, that he couldn’t seem to pull himself together.