“Well, no,” he admitted, coloring. “Though I fancy that was what old Goldhanger thought, when he agreed to lend me the money. I never told him so, mind! All I said was that I was certain of coming into possession of a large sum — and I was, Sophy! I did not think it could possibly fail! Bob Gilmorton — he is a particular friend of mine — knows the owner well, and he swore to me the horse could not lose!”
Sophy, who had an excellent memory, instantly recognized the name of Goldhanger as being the one she had read on the scrap of paper discovered in her bedroom, but she made no comment on this, merely inquiring whether the perfidious horse had lost his race.
“Unplaced!” said Hubert, with a groan.
She nodded wisely. “Sir Horace says that if ever you trust to a horse to set your fortune to rights he always is unplaced,” she observed. “He says also that if you game when your pockets are to let you will lose. It is only when you are very well breeched that you may expect to win. Sir Horace is always right!”
Declining to argue this point, Hubert spoke for several embittered minutes on the running of his horse, casting such grave aspersions upon the owner, the trainer, and the jockey as must have rendered him liable to prosecution for slander had they been uttered to anyone less discreet than his cousin. She let him run on, listening sympathetically, and only when he had talked himself to a standstill did she bring him back to what she thought a far more important point.
“Hubert, you are not of age,” she said. “And I know that it is quite illegal to lend money to minors, because when young Mr. — well, never mind the name, but we knew him well — when a young man of my acquaintance got into just such a fix, he came to Sir Horace for advice, and that is what Sir Horace said. I believe there are excessively severe penalties for doing such a thing.”
“Well, I know that,” Hubert answered. “Most of ’em won’t do it, but — well, the thing is that a friend of mine knew this fellow, Goldhanger, and gave me his direction, and — and told me what I should say, and the sort of interest I should have to pay — not that that seemed to matter then, because I thought — ”
“Is it very heavy?” Sophy interrupted.
He nodded. “Yes, because, though I lied about my age he knew, of course, that I’m not yet twenty-one, and — and he had me pretty well at his mercy. And I thought I should have been able to have paid it all off after that race.”
“How much did you borrow, Hubert?”