“We’re not all froth and splutter, like you.”
“Nor yet ice, like you, I should hope. You’re engaged to the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen in my life, and the best; and you take it as if it was your right instead of your frightfully good luck. It’s only because you don’t know the world that you are so infernally complacent about her, Richard. If you knew all that I do—”
The other sneered in a tone of levity. “A wonnerful lady’s man you—by all accounts! But don’t think I’m afeared of you. Might have been jealous afore you comed—not since.”
Anthony grew red as the dead asphodel foliage under his feet in the bogs.
“That’s as much as to say I’m a fool.”
“Why so? It’s as much as to say you’re honest—that’s all.”
“That wasn’t what you meant when you spoke. You were laughing because you know you are sharper than I am. You may be, but you’re not sharp enough to know your luck. You’ve told me pretty plainly what I am; now I’ll tell you what you are—a good shot and a good sportsman all round, but no other good that I can see. You think a jolly sight too much of yourself to make a good husband, anyway. If Jane realised—”
“Mind your awn business!” thundered out the other, “and keep her name off your tongue henceforward. D’you think I doan’t know her a million times better than you do? D’you think us wants lessons from you after all these years, you—”
“I can make you angry, then, though I am a born fool?”
“Yes, you can; an’ you damn soon will if you’m not more careful of your speech. I doan’t want to take law in my own hands an’ give you a thrashing; but that’ll I do if you touch this matter again. Who are you, to tell me my duty to my maiden?”