A sudden flush of anger swept over Charley's face—never before in his life had that face been so sensitive, never even as a child. Something had waked in the odd soul of Beauty Steele.
"Don't be a sweep—leave Kathleen out of it!" he said, in a sharp, querulous voice—a voice unnatural to himself, suggestive of little use, as though he were learning to speak, using strange words stumblingly through a melee of the emotions. It was not the voice of Charley Steele the fop, the poseur, the idlest man in the world.
"What part of the twenty-five thousand went into the arsenic?" he said, after a pause. There was no feeling in the voice now; it was again even and inquiring.
"Nearly all."
"Don't lie. You've been living freely. Tell the truth, or—or I'll know the reason why, Billy."
"About two-thirds-that's the truth. I had debts, and I paid them."
"And you bet on the races?"
"Yes."
"And lost?"
"Yes. See here, Charley; it was the most awful luck—"