“Another of Colin’s amusing stories,” said his father.
“Sh-sh,” said Colin. “Granny, you always turn up the ace for your trump card. Will you give me lessons?”
The rubber was very quickly over, and Raymond took Colin’s place. Colin drew a chair up close to his brother, and instead of reading a paper in the corner, watched his hand and the play of it with breathless attention.
“Raymond; you’re a wizard,” he said at the end of it. “Every plan of yours was right. You finessed and caught the king, you didn’t finesse and caught the queen. Why don’t I have luck like yours? It’s enough to make any fellow jealous; I shan’t look at your hand any more. I shall look at Violet’s. My poor wife! Raymond’s got all the winning cards again. Or, if he hasn’t, he’ll turn them into winning cards. He’ll down you.”
“Colin, if you would talk just a little less,” said his father, “we should be able to attend a little more.”
Raymond, if no one else, fully appreciated the utter absence of reproof in his father’s voice. If it had been he who had been talking, there would have been, at the best, a chill politeness there; at the worst, a withering snub. But this was the candour of friend to friend.... About that signed paper now, which Colin had deposited at his bank. He himself had signed some sort of mad confession that he had planned to shoot Colin. His will had bent to Colin’s like hot wax to strong fingers, but could he not somehow get possession of it again? While it was in Colin’s hands, it was like a toasting-fork in which that devil-twin of his impaled and held him before the fire. All dinner-time Colin had scorched him, and not less burning was this mocking kindliness which made the one appear so warmly genial, the other awkward and ungracious. How long would he be able to stand it? Presently, at the end of the rubber, Colin would join him in the smoking-room and reveal another aspect, no doubt. But he could rob him of that further indulgence, he would go to bed as soon as the rubber was over.
The next hand finished it and Lady Yardley got up. She had won to-night from Colin, and clinked a couple of half-sovereigns in her hand.
“But it will come back to you, darling,” she said. “Everything there is will come to you if you are wise and careful. My eyes grow dim as I get older, but there is another sort of sight that gets brighter. Oh, I see very well.”
Philip went with her to the door.
“Your eyes are wonderful yet, mother,” he said. “There are years of vision in them yet.”