“Well?” Sherry said. “Well? What’s your choice? Will you have swords or pistols?”
“I repeat: I shall not permit you to pick a quarrel with me. You are drunk! If you say that I set Mrs Gillingham on to ruin Lady Sheringham, you will be made to look a fool. I deny it utterly, and she will do so also!”
Sherry stood looking at him for a moment with narrowed, contemptuous eyes. Then he turned away, and set his hand on the doorknob. “My cousin Ferdy told me you were a commoner, Revesby,” he said. His words were like the flick of a whiplash, and Revesby stiffened under them. “He don’t know the half of it!” Sherry said. “You’re cow-hearted — and I never guessed it!”
He waited for a minute, but Sir Montagu neither spoke nor moved. Sherry gave a scornful laugh, and passed out of the room.
Chapter Seventeen
WHEN IT WAS GRADUALLY BORNE IN UPON THE Viscount’s two best friends that his annoyance with Sir Montagu, instead of blowing over, as they had gloomily supposed it would, had developed into what bore all the appearance of implacable hostility, they were so overjoyed that it was some time before they troubled to inquire into the cause of so complete a break in a most undesirable friendship. It presently occurred to Mr Ringwood, however, that the Viscount was not in quite such volatile spirits as of yore; and at a convenient moment, as he sat in his friend’s library, sampling some burgundy which Sherry had just acquired, he asked simply: “Anything amiss, dear old boy?”
Sherry looked up, surprised. “No, what should be?”
“That’s what I wondered. No wish to pry into your affairs. Just thought you wasn’t in your usual spirits. Very tolerable wine, this.”
“What do you mean, not in my usual spirits? Never better in my life, Gil!”
“Well, I don’t know, now I come to think of it, what I mean. Took a notion into my head. I do sometimes. Dare say it was because you left Watier’s early last night. Not like you. You ain’t at a standstill, Sherry?”