The Queen's Cup

by G. A. Henty

"About someone who had beaten you always, and who you thought always would beat you, if you came in contact again. You would not tell me his name. Was it Mr. Carthew?"

"I would not answer the question then, Bertha, and you surely cannot expect me to answer it now."

"I do expect you to answer it."

"Then I must most emphatically decline to do so," he said. "What! do you think that if it were he, I would be so base as to discredit him now? For you must remember that I said that only one of my defeats was due to foul play, that most of the others were simply due to the fact that he was a better man than I was. The matter has long since been forgotten, and, whoever it is, I would not prejudice him in the opinion of anyone by raising up that old story. I have no shadow of proof that it was he who damaged my boat. It might have been the act of some boatman about the place who had laid his money against my winning."

"That is enough," she said quietly. "I did not think that you would tell me whether it was Mr. Carthew, but I was sure that if it were not he you would not hesitate to say so. Thank you, that is all I wanted to see you for. What you said yesterday brought that talk we had so vividly into my mind that I could not resist asking you. It explained what seemed to me at the time to be strange; how it was that you, who are generally so cordial in your manner, were so cold to him when you first met him at our house. I thought that there might be something more serious—" and she looked him full in the face.

"Perhaps I am a prejudiced beggar," he said, with an attempt to smile, and then added somewhat bitterly; "You see things since have not been calculated to make me specially generous in his case."

She did not reply, and after a moment's pause he said, "Well, as Lady Greendale seems to be busy, I will be going."

"You will come to the ball tomorrow evening, won't you?" she asked.

"I suppose I shall have to," he said. "If I win, though mind I feel sure that I shan't, it will seem odd if I don't come. If I lose, it will look as if I sulked."

"You must come," she said, "and you must have a dance with me. You have not been keeping your word, Major Mallett. You said that you would always be the same to me, and you are not. You have never once asked me to dance with you, and you are changed altogether."