“There’s just time,” said Hargate, looking at his watch again, “for a short stroll. I want to have a talk with you.”
“Oh!” said Lord Dreever.
His air did not belie his feelings. He looked pensive, and he was pensive. It was deuced awkward, this twenty pounds business.
Hargate was watching him covertly. It was his business to know other people’s business, and he knew that Lord Dreever was impecunious, and depended for supplies entirely on a prehensile uncle. For the success of the proposal he was about to make he relied on this fact.
“Who’s this man Pitt?” asked Hargate.
“Oh, pal of mine,” said his lordship. “Why?”
“I can’t stand the fellow.”
“I think he’s a good chap,” said his lordship. “In fact,” remembering Jimmy’s Good Samaritanism, “I know he is. Why don’t you like him?”
“I don’t know. I don’t.”
“Oh!” said his lordship indifferently. He was in no mood to listen to the likes and dislikes of other men.
“Look here, Dreever,” said Hargate, “I want you to do something for me—I want you to get Pitt out of the place.”
Lord Dreever eyed him curiously.
“Eh?” he said. Hargate repeated his remark.
“You seem to have mapped out quite a programme for me,” said Lord Dreever.
“Get him out of it,” continued Hargate vehemently. Jimmy’s prohibition against billiards had hit him hard. He was suffering the torments of Tantalus. The castle was full of young men of the kind to whom he most resorted—easy marks, every one—and here he was, simply through Jimmy, careened like a disabled battleship. It was maddening. “Make him go. You invited him here. He doesn’t expect to stop indefinitely, I suppose? If you left, he’d have to, too. What you must do is to go back to London tomorrow. You can easily make some excuse. He’ll have to go with you. Then you can drop him in London and come back. That’s what you must do.”
A delicate pink flush might have been seen to spread itself over Lord Dreever’s face. He began to look like an angry rabbit. He had not a great deal of pride in his composition, but the thought of the ignominious role which Hargate was sketching out for him stirred what he had to its shallow bottom.
Talking on, Hargate managed to add the last straw.
“Of course,” he said, “that money you lost to me at piquet—what was it? Twenty? Twenty pounds, wasn’t it? Well, we would look on that as cancelled, of course. That will be all right.”
His lordship exploded.
“Will it?” he cried, pink to the ears. “Will it, by George? I’ll pay you every frightful penny of it tomorrow—and then you can clear out, instead of Pitt. What do you take me for, I should like to know?”
“A fool, if you refuse my offer.”
“I’ve a jolly good mind to give you a most frightful kicking.”
“I shouldn’t try if I were you. It’s not the sort of game you’d shine at. Better stick to piquet.”
“If you think I can’t pay you your rotten money—”
“I do. But if you can, so much the better. Money is always useful.”
“I may be a fool in some ways—”
“You understate it, my dear man.”
“But I’m not a cad.”
“You’re getting quite rosy, Dreever. Wrath is good for the complexion.”
“And if you think you can bribe me, you never made a bigger mistake in your life.”
“Yes, I did,” said Hargate, “when I thought you had some glimmerings of intelligence. But if it gives you any pleasure to behave like the juvenile lead in a melodrama, by all means do. Personally, I shouldn’t have thought the game would be worth the candle. But if your keen sense of honour compels you to pay the twenty pounds, all right. You mentioned tomorrow? That’ll suit me. So we’ll let it go at that.”
He walked off, leaving Lord Dreever filled with that comfortable glow which comes to the weak man who for once has displayed determination. He felt that he must not go back from his dignified standpoint. That money would have to be paid, and on the morrow. Hargate was the sort of man who could, and would, make it exceedingly unpleasant for him if he failed. A debt of honour was not a thing to be trifled with.
But he felt quite safe. He knew he could get the money when he pleased. It showed, he reflected philosophically, how out of evil cometh good. His greater misfortune, the engagement, would, as it were, neutralise the loss, for it was ridiculous to suppose that Sir Thomas, having seen his ends accomplished, and being presumably in a spacious mood in consequence, would not be amenable to a request for a mere twenty pounds.
He went on into the hall. He felt strong and capable. He had shown Hargate the stuff there was in him. He was Spennie Dreever, the man of blood and iron, the man with whom it was best not to trifle. But it was really, come to think of it, uncommonly lucky that he was engaged to Molly. He recoiled from the idea of attempting, unfortified by that fact, to extract twenty pounds from Sir Thomas for a card debt.
In the hall he met Saunders.
“I have been looking for your lordship,” said the butler.
“Eh? Well, here I am.”
“Just so, your lordship. Miss McEachern entrusted me with this note to deliver to you in the event of her not being able to see you before dinner personally, your lordship.”
“Right-O. Thanks.”
He started to go upstairs, opening the envelope as he went. What could the girl be writing to him about? Surely she wasn’t going to start sending him love letters or any of that frightful rot? Deuced difficult it would be to play up to that sort of thing.
He stopped on the landing to read the note, and at the first line his jaw fell. The envelope fluttered to the ground.
“Oh, my sainted aunt!” he moaned, clutching at the banisters. “Now I am in the soup!”
