“Then I had better reserve my wrath,” he said. “Go on, Horry.”
“You see, I w-went with Lord Lethbridge, and—and left the message, because—because—”
“Because you naturally wanted me to know that you had—shall we say?—thrown down the glove. I quite understand that part of it,” said Rule encouragingly.
She looked up again. “Yes, that w-was the reason,” she admitted. “It wasn’t that I wanted very p-particularly to be with him, Rule. And I thought since everyone was to be m-masked that nobody would know, except you, so that I should just make you angry and n-not cause any scandal at all.”
“The matter is now perfectly clear,” said Rule. “Let us proceed to Ranelagh.”
“W-well, at first it was very p-pleasant, and I liked it excessively. Then—then we had supper in one of the boxes, and I t-teased Robert to play cards with me. You must know, M-Marcus, that I wanted dreadfully to play with him, and he never would. At last he said he would, but—but not for money.” She knit her brows, puzzling over something, and suddenly said: “Rule, d-do you think that perhaps I d-drank too much champagne?”
“I trust not, Horry.”
“Well, I c-cant account for it otherwise,” she said. “He said he would p-play for a lock of my hair, and it’s no use d-deceiv-ing you, Rule, I agreed!” As no explosion of wrath greeted this confession she took a firm grip of the chair-back, and continued. “And I l-let him take me to a p-private room—in fact, I wanted it to be p-private—and we played p-piquet, and—and I lost. And I m-must say,” she added, “though he is the most odious m-man I ever met he is a very, very fine card-p-player.”
“I believe he is,” said the Earl. “I need not ask, of course, whether you paid your stake.”
“I had to. It was a d-debt of honour, you see. I let him cut one of my c-curls off, and—and he’s got it n-now.”