"Unless the bottom of my pocket is reached first," said Marcel, with another rueful face.
Only he and I knew how little was in that pocket.
"Why is that cousin of mine such a laggard?" asked Marcel, presently. "We have been at the cards nearly an hour and he has not come."
"He will be here," said Belfort. "Does he play a good game?"
"If he doesn't play better than I do," replied Marcel, "he ought to be banished forever from such good company as this."
"Come, come, Montague!" said Catron, "a soldier like you, who can look into the angry face of an enemy, should show more courage before the painted face of a card."
I saw that no suspicion had entered the mind of any save Belfort, and he pressed his lips together a little in his anger at the way in which his questions were turned aside. But he was too wise to make a direct accusation, for all the others would have taken it as absurd, and would have credited his feelings immediately to the jealousy which he had shown of me.
The door opened, and a tall young man of our own age in the uniform of a British officer entered, and stood for a moment looking at us. His face was unknown to me, and this I felt sure must be Marcel's cursed cousin Rupert. I saw Marcel's lip moving as if he would greet the stranger but he remained silent, and I, resolving to keep a bold face throughout, played the card that I held in my hand.
"You are late, Richmond," said Catron, "but your welcome is the greater. There are some present whom you do not know. Come, let me introduce you. This is Lieutenant Moore, and this is Captain Montague, and this, Lieutenant Melville; the last two just arrived from England, and of whose adventures you perhaps have heard. Gentlemen, Lieutenant Henry Richmond of Pennsylvania, one of his Majesty's most loyal and gallant officers."
So it was not the cousin after all, but a Tory, and my heart sprang up with a strange sense of relief. A place was made for him at one of the tables, and the game, or rather games, went on.