“Oh, lord, no! Fact of the matter is, I don’t mean to be. I’ve been talking to my man of business, and the long and the short of it is I’ve been having some over-deep doings, and it don’t answer. No harm done, but I don’t mean to go Tallerton’s way, I can tell you.”
“I’m deuced glad of it, Sherry!” Mr Ringwood said. “Never liked to see you going off with Revesby to those hells of his. Sharps and flats, my boy! sharps and flats!”
“Well, you won’t see me going off with him again to a hell, or anywhere else, for that matter!” Sherry said, an edge to his voice.
Mr Ringwood met those smouldering blue eyes with a gaze of steady inquiry. “Quarrelled with the fellow, Sherry?”
Sherry gave a short laugh. “I tried to call him out. Called him all the names I could lay my tongue to! Jupiter! I even hit him in the face! He’s cow-hearted. Told him so — and he took that along with all the rest!”
“He would,” said Mr Ringwood. “But what made you try to call him out, old boy? Not the baby?”
“The baby? Oh, that! Lord, no!”
Mr Ringwood maintained a tactful but not unhopeful silence. Sherry refilled the glasses, and wandered over to the fire, and stirred the log on it with his booted foot. He glanced down at his friend. “This ain’t to go any farther, Gil.”
“Can rely on me, dear boy.”
“Yes, I know. I wouldn’t tell you if I couldn’t. Concerns my wife.”