"Egad, Tiverton," said I to the Marquess, who now first observed me, "you had the cards that time with a vengeance. Are you playing on? What about your engagement with me?"
The Marquess coloured slightly at my veiled rebuke. He looked doubtfully at his watch, then at me, and finally at Brocton.
"Have you had enough?" he asked.
"Enough?" cried Brocton. "Since you took up with farmers you've got chicken-hearted at cards. Play on, my lord!"
"I have told you," said I quietly to Brocton, "that his lordship has an engagement with me. That should be enough. If you want your revenge, which is natural, there are other nights available."
"I want my revenge now, and will have it," he said meaningly, "and this is how I serve men who come between me and my revenge." He was shuffling a pack of cards as he spoke, and, with the words, he flung them in my face.
At most of the tables play stopped, and the players there became silently intent on this new game where the stakes ran highest of all. It meant a fight, a fight between an expert swordsman and a man who knew nothing of the craft. To such a fight there could be but one end.
Tiverton was beside himself. "She'll never forgive me!" he muttered, and I looked amusedly at him and whispered, "Who? The nabobess?"
He was the highest in rank there, and as such a court of appeal and a sort of master of the ceremonies.
"My Lord Tiverton," said I aloud, "I am, as you know, a recent arrival in town from the Americas and other outlandish places, and, naturally enough under these circumstances, I am not clear on some points."