“Nonsense!” said Gilly, and sprang up into the chaise.
“This,” declared Belinda buoyantly, “is beyond anything great, sir! To be jauntering about in a private chaise like a real lady, as fine as a star! If Mrs. Pilling were to see me now she would not credit her eyes, I daresay! Oh, if only Mr. Liversedge does not find me, and take me back again!”
“Mr. Liversedge,” said Gilly, “has a great deal of effrontery, but hardly enough, I dare swear, for that! Let us put him out of our minds!” He saw that she was still looking vaguely scared, and smiled. “There is nothing more he can do, Belinda, after all! Ten to one, he is by this time turning his mind into other channels.”
But little though he knew it he had wronged Mr. Liversedge. That gentleman had found himself so very far from well on the previous evening that he had been quite unable to bend his powerful mind to any more difficult problem than how he could most expeditiously cure the shocking headache that nearly blinded him. He bad gone to lie down upon his bed, and had responded to a suggestion that he would be better for a bite of supper only by a hollow groan. Mr. Minims, regarding him with a scornful eye, offered him consolation in the form of a reminder that he had warned him that no good could come of flying at game too high for him.
“You leave them swell bleaters be, Sam!” he adjured the prostrate sufferer. “Then maybe you won’t have no broken head another time!”
Mr. Liversedge opened a bloodshot eye. “Swithin!” he found strength to utter.
“Sam you was christened, and much good it done you to go a-giving yourself a silly flash name like Swithin!” said Mr. Mimms severely. “Well, if you don’t want no peck and booze there’ll be more for them as does, that’s one thing!”
On this cheering thought, he departed, leaving his afflicted brother to spread a cold compress over his head and to take another pull at the brandy bottle.
It was some hours later before Mr. Liversedge felt able to rise from his couch, and to totter downstairs to the kitchen. He still wore the Duke’s handkerchief knotted round his head, and he had by no means recovered his complexion, but the pangs of hunger had begun to attack him. He pushed open the kitchen door, and found that his brother was entertaining a guest, a thin, wiry gentleman, who wore a riding-suit of sober-coloured cloth, and a pair of well-fitting boots that seemed to have seen much service. He had a pair of bright grey eyes, which lifted quickly and warily as the door opened. He was in the act of consuming a prodigious portion of cold beef, but he held his knife suspended for an instant, until he saw who it was that had entered, when he relaxed, and waved the laden knife at Mr. Liversedge, saying cheerfully: “Hallo, Sam, old gager!”
Mr. Mimms, who was seated on the opposite side of the table, engaged in inspecting a collection of watches, purses, fobs, and rings, cast an appraising look at Mr. Liversedge, and said: “That flash mort of yours has loped off.”