“And weaken my own suit, sir,” he would cry, “and spoil all chance of what I was playing for. What would have been the use of that? You fail to understand the elementary laws of the game. You will spend an hour with Cavendish now and then, as I’m not ashamed to do, if you take my advice. It will save you many rubbers.”
But his partner, if wise, would say nothing, possessing his soul in a show, at any rate, of patience until the Colonel revoked. Sometimes he revoked early, sometimes late, but one revoke in an evening might be confidently looked for. It cost three tricks, it is true, but peace at any price was the motto of the Colonel’s partner, for after the revoke occurred the Colonel ceased to be a man of war, and let his kings die like men under the stroke of the ace. At other times he would cover his mistakes with humorous gallantry.
“I ought to have played the queen, sir, and I acknowledge it,” he would be so kind as to say; “but I couldn’t bear that that knave of a king—knave of a king, ha, ha!—should take her from me. The fair sex, sir, the fair sex.”
Morton Hall, the country-seat of the Colonel’s noble relative, was only a few miles out of Wroxton, and when he returned home that evening to dinner, after breaking the news of Lord Avesham’s death to Mrs. Raymond and his daughters, he held a loud, overbearing discussion across the table (for at home, as among his old cronies, his gallantry was relaxed) as to whether the eldest son of his deceased relative would be able to keep it open. The family was poor, and the Colonel asserted angrily, as if he had been personally affronted, that the death duties would be so heavy that they would have to let it.
“Don’t tell me,” he said, sipping his soup with a sound of many waters, though nobody had told him anything. “Don’t tell me. They are as poor as rats. Pepper, give me the pepper. I’d sooner wash my hands in this soup, Constance, than drink it. Simple water, simple warm water. As poor as rats. Poorer. It’s all that infernal Radical government. We are the best blood in England—the Aveshams are the best blood in England, and have served their king and country for five hundred years. There ought to be a government grant. Take away the soup.”
Mrs. Raymond was a resigned and feeble woman, with a thin, vague face which it was impossible to remember. Ten years of married life with her husband had made a phantom of her. She had the wreck of long-departed prettiness about her, but that had been sunk, becoming, as it were, a total loss, leaving her face devoid of any qualities. Her mind was destitute of hopes, aims, and regrets; she was as intangible to description as a moonbeam.
“It would be impossible to provide for all the families of all the poor peers in England, Robert,” she suggested.
“Impossible? Yes, if you have a government of Atheists and Socialists, who are afraid of the Sultan, and wish to abolish the House of Lords—God bless it! That is where the fault lies. England is going to the dogs. I wish, Constance, you would sometimes get hold of fish that is eatable. Worcester sauce. Give me the Worcester sauce. Venison—my fish is venison. Going to the dogs. Why, in the good old days it was sufficient for a man to be connected with a bishop or a peer to make sure of a government office. The apotheosis of the brewer, that’s what I call the England of to-day. Take away the fish. What else is there for dinner?”
“It is very hard to get good fish in this weather,” said Mrs. Raymond. “It is next to impossible to keep it.”
“Impossible? Nonsense. You women have no method. You’ve only got to keep it cool. No method at all. You keep fish all day in a hot kitchen, and then expect it to be good in the evening.”