"Don't be an ass, Doughty," said Polkinghorne sharply; "and if you can't help being a cad, wait till Miss Eliot isn't present."
"Oh, never mind about me; I want to see you kill him, Ishmael!" cried
Hilaria viciously.
"Well, why did you want to laugh when Doughty said that?" asked
Polkinghorne judicially.
"Said what?" asked Ishmael.
"Why, that he was just going to be a gentleman."
"Did he say that? I didn't hear him. But I should have laughed if I had…."
Killigrew stared at his friend in amazement. Was this the Ishmael who a half-hour or so ago had put forward the theory that one should never fight till one was sure of winning? He did not know that the wine in Ishmael's brain at that minute was the headiest in the world, the most sure in imparting sense of power—the sudden up-welling of the joy of life. It was Doughty's turn to laugh now; he seemed suddenly to have recovered poise.
"I forgot—you'd be such a good judge of a gentleman—with your family history," he said.
The singing went from Ishmael's being, but something hot came up through him like a tide. "What d'you mean by that?" he asked, and still in his passionate dislike of the other did not see what was opening at his feet.
"Only that a fellow with a pack of bastard brothers must have had just the father and mother to teach him…."