Lord Bellefield remarked his eagerness, and smiled contemptuously. “Calm yourself, my good Rastelli,” he said, quietly lighting a cigar; “justice shall be done, depend on it.”
“How cold and phlegmatic you English are!” exclaimed Rastelli, irritated at his companion’s apparent apathy; “had the brigand insulted me as he has insulted you, if I had not stabbed him on the spot, I should have known no peace till he lay bleeding at my feet.”
Lord Bellefield placed his hand on his friend’s shoulder, and approaching his lips to his ear, said in a low, impressive voice, “Listen! we Englishmen do not talk about these things, we do them.” There was a cold, grating bitterness in his tone, which told of such fiendish malice working at his heart that the Italian’s display of boyish passion shrank into insignificance beside it.
Together they repaired to Rastelli’s dwelling; cards were produced, and their game began. With the calculating prudence of an accomplished gamester, Lord Bellefield played cautiously and for moderate sums till he had tested his adversary’s calibre; then, confident in his own skill, he artfully led on the young Italian to propose higher stakes, until, at the expiration of an hour and a half, he had won above a couple of hundred pounds.
“You are becoming excited and beginning to play wildly, amico mio,” he said, pushing back his chair; “we will pause for tonight.”
“And when will you give me my revenge?” inquired the Italian with flushed cheeks and trembling lips.
“When you like—to-morrow evening, if it so please you—always supposing our peep-of-day amusement goes as it should do,” answered Lord Bellefield carelessly.
“And what if you should be hit?” questioned Rastelli with a grim smile, which involuntarily suggested to his auditor the idea that such a catastrophe would not deeply distress him.
“To provide against such a contingency I shall make my will tonight, and appoint you executor and residuary legatee; so that when you have satisfied the few claims against me, the remainder of my property will be yours, to compensate for this evening’s run of ill-luck,” was the jesting reply.
Rastelli, having by this time in a degree recovered his good humour, answered in the same light tone; then having made their final arrangements for the morrow’s meeting, they shook hands and parted.