The whiskey had affected him also. His brain was becoming heated.
"Well, I don't know about impudence," he answered pertly and with a red face. "Anyhow, Rita dined with me last week!"
He brought it out with a little note of triumph.
Lothian nodded.
"Yes, and you took her to that disgusting little café Maréchale in Soho. You ought not to take a lady to such a place as that. You've been long enough in London to know. Don't be such a babe. If you ever get a nice girl to go out with you again try and think things out a little more."
Tears of mortified vanity were in the young man's eyes.
"She's been writing to you!" he said with a catch in his voice, and suddenly his whole face seemed to change and dissolve into something else.
Did the lips really grow thicker? Did the angry blood which suffused the cheeks give them a dusky tinge which was not of Europe? Would the tongue loll out soon?
"I beg your pardon?" Lothian said coolly.
"Yes, she has!" the young fellow hissed. "You're trying on a game with the girl. She's a lady, and a good girl, and you're a married man. She's been telling you about me, though I've a right to meet her and you've not!—Look here, if she realised and knew what I know, and Toftrees and Mr. Amberley know, what every one in London knows, by Jove, she'd never speak to you again!"