“But one is, unhappily for oneself, a gentleman,” Ormskirk pointed out. “It is unfortunate, and occasionally tiresome, but one is bound to remember that one is a gentleman.”
“Let me understand you, Ormskirk!” said Mr Ravenscar. “Your sense of honour being too nice to permit of your holding the girl’s debts over her by way of threat, or bribe, or what you will, it yet appears to you expedient that someone else—myself, for example—should turn the thumbscrew for you?”
Lord Ormskirk walked on several paces beside Mr Ravenscar before replying austerely: “I have frequently deplored a tendency in these days to employ in polite conversation a certain crudity, a violence, which is offensive to persons of my generation. You, Ravenscar, prefer the fists to the sword. With me it is otherwise. Believe me, it is always a mistake to put too much into words.”
“It doesn’t sound well in plain English, does it?” retorted Ravenscar. “Let me set your mind at rest! My cousin will not marry Miss Grantham.”
His lordship sighed. “I feel sure I can rely on you, my dear fellow. There is positively no need for us to pursue the subject further. So you played a hand or two at piquet with the divine Deborah! They tell me your skill at the game is remarkable. But you play at Brooks’s, I fancy. Such a mausoleum! I wonder you will go there. You must do me the honour of dining at my house one evening, and of giving me the opportunity to test your skill. I am considered not inexpert myself, you know.”
They had reached Grosvenor Square by this time, where his lordship’s house was also situated. Outside it, Ormskirk halted, and said pensively: “By the way, my dear Ravenscar, did you know that Filey has acquired the prettiest pair of blood-chestnuts it has ever been my lot to clap eyes on?”
“No,” said Mr Ravenscar indifferently. “I supposed him to have bought a better pair than he set up against my greys six months ago.”
“What admirable sang-froid you have!” remarked his lordship. “I find it delightful, quite delightful! So you actually backed yourself to win without having seen the pair you were to be matched with!”
“I know nothing of Filey’s horses,” Ravenscar responded. “It was quite enough to have driven against him once, however, to know him for a damnably cow-handed driver.”
His lordship laughed gently. “Almost you persuade me to bet on you, my dear Ravenscar! I recall that your father was a notable whip.”