“There you are, Lucy,” cried Clare triumphantly. “Didn’t I tell you it was because he was more than the other’s match?”
“Well, it hadn’t got a look that way at the time, and that was what struck everybody who saw it. Certainly it struck me,” replied Fullerton. “But the next time you girls start taking away your neighbours’ characters, don’t do it at the top of your voices with window and door wide open. We could hear you all down the road. Couldn’t we, Driffield?”
“Mr Driffield sets a higher value on his immortal soul than you do on yours, Dick,” retorted Mrs Fullerton loftily. “Consequently he isn’t going to back you in your—ahem!—unveracity.”
“No. But he’s dying of thirst, Lucy. So am I.”
She laughed, and took the hint. Then as the two men put down their glasses, Fullerton went on—
“Talking of the gloves—that reminds me of another time when Lamont climbed down. That time he put on the gloves with Voss. It was a beautiful spar, and really worth seeing. Then, just as the fun was at its height, Lamont suddenly turned quite white—as white as such a swarthy beggar can turn, that is—and chucked up the sponge then and there.”
“Yes. I remember that. It looked rum certainly—but all the same I’ll maintain that Lamont’s no coward. He showed no sign of it in the war of ’93 anyway. If anything rather the reverse.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Clare significantly.
“May have lost his nerve since,” said her brother-in-law, also significantly.
“Well, I like Lamont,” said Driffield decidedly.