When he had passed the house he turned, abruptly and retraced his footsteps, and walked back to his hotel, which he reached with a most unaccustomed feeling of weariness as a result of his long tramp. He discovered when he got back that Holman had returned. He came upon him in the vestibule, and was able to greet him with no trace of his former irritation. He had walked that mood off, or had got the better of it somehow.
Holman was in excellent spirits. He wanted to talk, and suggested whisky and a smoke and a retired corner; and Matheson, infected with his bonhomie, managed to throw off the despondency that had weighed upon him all day and respond to his genial humour.
Before they separated for the night, rather unexpectedly, and yet in a manner which seemed to suggest that he had deliberately led up to the subject, Holman made an allusion to the cards, and to the other’s run of ill luck, which he prophesied must turn shortly.
“It can’t hold for ever,” he asserted. “I’ll play you to-morrow double or quits.”
“It’s no good,” Matheson answered. “If I lost I couldn’t pay, and I’m not taking on a debt to hang like a millstone round my neck for years.”
“I’ll tell you what I will do.” Holman’s hand fell warmly on the other’s shoulder... “I can’t clear you out without giving you a chance of winning back. If you lose you can pay me in service.”
“That depends,” Matheson answered, and scrutinised the speaker closely, “on what the service is.”
“Well, of course.” There was a long pause.
“We will go into that to-morrow,” came the slow response.