“Yes, somebody did,” she replied firmly and steadily. “Somebody accused somebody else of cheating, and—in all probability he was right, quite right.” There was a movement, a stir among the men, who were standing in idle attitudes about the room, and they turned to look and to listen as she went on in the same clear, resolute tones: “But I don’t pity any of you; I feel no more sympathy for those who are cheated than for those who cheat.” The sensation of amazement deepened among her hearers, and Mr. Candover grew deadly white. She went on, with rising warmth: “Ought you not all to expect underhand ways, when you meet to play in an underhand manner? Whom can you blame but yourselves when, meeting by stealth to play games which can only be played by stealth, you find yourselves the easy prey of——” And she stared defiantly at Mr. Candover—“a gang of swindlers!”
CHAPTER XVII
There was a silence of amazement, of doubt, of consternation; and the men who thronged the showroom looked at each other, and then at the daring woman who had brought this accusation, as it seemed, against the well-known, the irreproachable, the wealthy Mr. Candover.
Perhaps the most shocked of all the listeners to this unexpected tirade was Sir Harry Archdale, who, himself a victim of the unfair play carried on at “The Briars,” had been only too willing to look upon the intrusion of a black sheep there as an unhappy accident, and upon Audrey as a victim like himself of that intrusion.
But, wishing as he did to take her part, he had been considerably perturbed by the opposite views of her which were commonly held among the habitués of “The Briars,” and now that she had the audacity and the bad taste to fling a direct accusation into the face of one of the most prominent men of his own set, Sir Harry at once took fire, and mindful of the fact that the man whom she accused was the father of the lovely Pamela, he stepped forward boldly, and was the very first to put a question to the angry lady.
“Madame Rocada,” said he, deferentially as far as manner went, but in an offended tone, “you will, I’m sure, think it only right, when you say a thing which affects all, or almost all of us, to be more explicit. Whom do you accuse of cheating? Who are the members of the gang of swindlers you refer to?”
Audrey, already trembling from the effects of her own boldness, turned to him and answered in a broken but determined voice:—
“One of them you know. His name—or the name he goes by—is Durley Diggs. He was Mr. Candover’s secretary.”
“Was, not is,” retorted Mr. Candover, speaking for the first time, and as coolly as if the accusation just brought were no concern of his, though his face was very pale and his eyes wore a strange and almost glassy look. “When I heard that complaints had been made about his play I discharged him at once from my employment—as you must remember, Madame Rocada.”
“Yes, Madame, you told me so yourself,” said Sir Harry.