"Bad-tempered again, Arthur?" she observed.
"He's a rotten fluker," the young man rejoined surlily. "He wins all my pocket money."
For a single moment the whole situation seemed to be commonplace, almost absurd. Here was a sulky, ill-conditioned boy, pitchforked into the charge of a very ordinary little company of gentlepeople, who were doing their best to make him one of themselves. Duncombe's rebuke was free from all severity, and it was certainly merited.
"Arthur," he said, "you should never accuse your opponent of fluking at any game. Take your defeat in silence if you cannot be pleasant about it. Mr. Lister or Mr. Cotton would tell you that I am giving you good advice."
"It was rather hard lines," Rose remarked, smiling up at him.
The change in the boy's face was almost amazing.
"You see, I was ninety-eight," he explained, "and that's the seventh half-crown I've lost following, just on the last stroke—Miss Mindel—I say—would you sing something?"
Rose got up and made her way to the piano, followed by the young man. For a moment I saw precisely the look in Miss Duncombe's dark eyes as had flashed in her brother's a few minutes before, a look, I fancied, of patient but subdued malevolence. Almost as I realised it, however, it passed. She motioned me to sit by her side.
"Mr. Lister," she said, "I envy you your profession. I think that anything in the world must be better than being bear-leader to a boy like Arthur."
"Your brother seems to have quite a great deal of influence over him," I observed.