Gilbert lifted his glass and sipped slowly. His face was composed. It bore the Napoleonic mask it had worn during the last part of their drive to the town.
Suddenly Gilbert rose up in his chair.
"You dirty little hanger-on," he said in a low voice, "how dare you mention any woman's name in this way!"
Without heat, without anger, but merely as a necessary measure of precaution or punishment, he smashed his left fist into Ingworth's jaw and laid him flat upon the carpet.
The girl behind the bar, who knew who Gilbert Lothian was very well, had been watching what was going on with experienced eyes.
She had seen, or known with the quick intuition of her training, that a row was imminent between the famous Mr. Lothian—whose occasional presences in the "lounge" were thought to confer a certain lustre upon that too hospitable rendezvous—and the excited young man with the dark red and strangely curly hair.
Molly Palmer had pressed the button of her private bell, which called Mr. Helzephron himself from his account books in the office.
Mr. Helzephron was a slim, bearded man, black of hair and saffron of visage. He was from Cornwall, in the beginning, and combined the inherent melancholy and pessimism of the Celt with the Celt's shrewd business instincts when he transplants himself.
He entered at that moment and caught hold of the wretched Ingworth just as the young man had risen, saw red, and was about to leap over the table at Lothian, whom, in all probability he would very soon have demolished.
Helzephron's arms and hands were like vices of steel. His voice droned like a wasp in a jam jar.