"It is not my fault that the cross is lost."
"I never said that it was," retorted Hale, tartly. "All the same you will have to find it and return it to me before I will agree to your marriage with my daughter. It would have been much better had you handed it over to me last night."
"I daresay," said George, somewhat sulkily, "but I'm not the man to give up anything when the demand is made in such a tone as you used. Besides, I don't see how I can find the cross."
"Please yourself, my boy. But unless you do, Lesbia marries Sargent."
"Sargent!" The blood rushed to Walker's cheeks and his voice shook with indignation. "Do you mean to say that you would give your daughter to that broken rake, to that worn-out----
"Ta! Ta! Ta!" said Hale, in an airy French fashion, and glad to see the young man lose his temper. "Sargent is my very good friend and was my brother officer when I was in the army. He would make Lesbia an excellent husband, as he is handsome and well-off and amiable, and----"
"And an idiot, a gambler, and a----"
"You'd better not let him hear you talk like that."
Walker laughed. "I fear no one, let me tell you, Mr. Hale. Mr. Sargent or Captain Sargent as he calls himself----"
"He has every right to call himself so. He was a captain."