“Dop, thanks. It’s a Heaven-sent liquor for this climate.”
Warren took the opportunity while getting out the said refreshment to pull himself together. The other’s news had come just in the nick of time. He need not now take over the mortgage on Seven Kloofs. Its owner was going to dear out anyhow; and he himself would be saved a sure and certain loss.
“Here you are now,” he said, “help yourself. Have a weed, too,” taking a cigar out of a box, and shoving the latter across to Wyvern. “So you’re going to clear, are you? Well, I shall miss you, old chap, so will someone else, I expect—eh? Of course, as acting for Keeling, I’ve been in a sort of way a professional enemy, but I haven’t really, for I’ve more than once kept him from putting the screw on you.”
“I know you have, Warren, and it’s devilish good of you.”
“Oh, that’s all right. You see, we can’t refuse business unless it’s downright shady, so I couldn’t chuck this because you and I are pals. Besides, I’ve done you far more good by taking it. If I hadn’t, Shafto would have got it, and I don’t think, somehow, you’d have found him any improvement. Eh?”
“No, indeed,” laughed Wyvern, who didn’t like Shafto, and whom Shafto didn’t like.
“You’ll find it a bit of a wrench parting with your place, Wyvern?”
“Rather. I love every stick and stone on it, although I’ve only had it such a short time. Besides—it has associations.”
“Of course,” laughed the other, significantly. “One of them being that it has ruined you.”
“Well, yes. But even that has carried its compensations.”