“I suppose so. I like Le Sage and don’t bear any grudge against him, though for a day or two after I did feel rather sore. He lost his temper a bit, and I felt sorry for him, because losing one’s temper takes it out of one so. I know it does out of me when I lose mine.”
Warren roared.
“When you lose yours! Why, you never do.”
“Don’t I? But it’s a most infernal weakness. You are sure to come out bottom dog if you do.”
“That’s about it. Have another drink? No? Sure? Well, then, old man, come out with me to my place for the night. What do you say? We can have a good old yarn, and we shan’t have many more of them if you’re trekking.”
“All right. I will.”
“That’s good. Now look here. I’ve got about an hour’s business to tackle, then you romp back here, and we’ll ride out together. No. I won’t ask you to take a cut in at écarté. I know you hate the sight of a pack of cards as dourly as any Covenanting Presbyterian ‘meenister.’”
“Well, I do,” laughed Wyvern, “but not for the same reason. The evening isn’t the time for mathematical calculation. It’s the time for yarning and pipes, and conviviality in general. All right. In an hour, then. So long.”
Warren ran a bachelor establishment some seven miles out of Gydisdorp. It was, in fact a fine farm, but he was interested in it mainly as a game preserve; the fanning department he turned over to an overseer “on the halves.” Not that he was ignorant on that side either, for he exacted his full share of what was yielded by the capabilities of the place. Here he was wont to entertain his friends, and comparatively high play was frequently the order of the evening; indeed it was whispered that it constituted a material addition to his store, both in currency and landed estate. He did neither at Wyvern’s expense, however, for the latter declared, once and for all, that he had nothing to lose, and in the next place the whole thing bored him beyond words.
So when Wyvern returned an hour later the two men rode out together, and passed an exceedingly pleasant and convivial evening. Wherein Warren was a paradox. He had a real liking for the other, and would have done anything in the world to do him a good turn, under all other circumstances. Here, however, Wyvern must be sacrificed, for mere friendship was but a featherweight beside Warren’s overmastering but as yet secret passion for Lalanté Le Sage, and have we not said that the sum of Warren’s credo was Number 1!