Was it then true? Gilderman’s heavy heart fell away like a plummet to a still lower depth. It was not the loss of the money he had bet Ryan, but the argument they had had before all those fellows. They had all been against him, and he had been very angry and excited. He had been very positive that the Syrinx would win. What a bitter shame to be proved to have been in the wrong, after all. How could he bear to acknowledge to all those fellows that he had been in the wrong? But even yet he could not accept such defeat. “I don’t believe it,” he said. “There’s a mistake. Why, just look at the Syrinx’s time against the Petrel, and the La Normandie’s time against the Majestic.”
Latimer-Moire burst out laughing. “What’s the use of arguing now, Gildy?” he said. “Facts are facts, and the fact in this case is that Tommy Ryan and the rest of us were right and that you were wrong. Come, Gildy, knuckle under and eat your humble-pie like a man.”
“I’ll not knuckle under till I have to,” said Gilderman, savagely. “I believe there is some mistake in the cablegram, and I’ll keep on believing it till I have proof to the contrary.”
Again Latimer-Moire burst out laughing. “By Jove! Gildy, I didn’t believe the loss of a five-thousand-dollar bet would hit you in such a sore spot.”
Gilderman was so angry at being misunderstood that he did not know what to do. He shut his teeth closely. He wanted to say something savage, but he could think of nothing to say. He got up and flung down the paper, and, without another word, went into the smoking-room beyond. There were three or four men gathered at the farther window sitting looking out into the street and talking together. There was no one at the window nearest him, and he pulled up a chair and sat down, resting his feet on the window-sill and pulling his hat down over his eyes. Then he gave himself up utterly to the black gloom of the mood that lay upon him. What was there in life that was worth the living? Nothing–nothing. Everything went wrong, and there was not a single thing to give pleasure to him. How miserably depressed and gloomy he felt. What could he do to escape it? Such moods as this had come upon him before, but it seemed to him that they had never before been as black as this. It must be the wretched night he had passed that made him so depressed.
He tried to fix his mind upon some higher and nobler thought–something to lift his spirit out of its depths. He almost prayed as he sat there, feeling about in the gloomy mood for some standing place whereon to rest. But he could find nothing whereon to rest. He could not lift himself into any ray of brightness out of the vapors that beset him. Why the mischief had not Furgeson bought Lady Maybell yesterday; then he would not have been suffering as he was now suffering. And the yacht-race–confound it!–if he only hadn’t been led into that argument it would not have been so hard to bear.
Suddenly some one tapped him with a cane from behind upon the top of the hat. He turned his head sharply and saw that it was Palliser. “Hey-o, Gildy!” he said, “La Normandie’s beat Syrinx. Did you see?”
Again that blind and sudden anger flamed up in Gilderman’s heart. “Well, what if she did?” said he, almost savagely. “Is that any reason for you to come around, like a fool, knocking me over the head with your cane?” He took off his hat as he spoke, smoothed the nap with his coat-sleeve, and then put it back very carefully upon his head.
Palliser stood staring at him. “By Jove! Gildy,” he said, almost blankly; and then he asked, “Feeling rusty this morning?”
“Rusty!” said Gilderman. “No, I’m not rusty, but I don’t like a fellow to come knocking my hat over my eyes with his walking-stick.”