“My lord, my lord!…”
But Rockhurst raised his hand with a commanding gesture.
“When a man enters upon a game of hazard with another, ’tis the very essence of honour that the chances should be equal between them. Now, my most excellent young host, had you played me with loaded dice to-night—”
The other broke out foaming at the mouth, with the acrid rage of the helplessly insulted.
“My lord Rockhurst—! I will suffer no man, nay, not even under my own roof, to dare such an insinuation. The dice, my lord—”
He made a frantic gesture toward the card-table. But, like the play of water upon red iron, Rockhurst’s cool voice fell upon his heat:—
“Nay—the dice are right enough—so are the cards. We were but us two, moreover, so you had no accomplice. These are the elements of honest play, as I was about to expound to you—since, indeed, your father’s only son, and a lad of your experience in court and camp, appears to require such expounding.”
He changed his tone for one more subtly keen, as the surgeon his blade at the delicate moment: “But another element in play, between gentlemen, is that one player should not stake against the other sums he does not possess.”
Farrant, wincing, ran his hands desperately through his fair locks; he fell into an arm-chair and, still clutching his love curls, drew them across his face. From behind this screen, after a long pause, he spoke muffled words:—