"Do you think that's sport?" she asked. "To get no good out of ordinary things? To get no pleasure out of dogs or horses except the pleasure of making them fight or race so that you can bet on the one you think best?"
She stopped breathlessly; and Milbanke, desperately at a loss, gazed from one angry, excited face to the other. But he was saved the trouble of finding an answer; for immediately Clodagh ceased to speak, Asshlin's loud laugh broke in again.
"Bravo!" he cried boisterously. "All the eloquence and all the lack of logic of your sex! But don't put those propositions to Milbanke; put them to yourself when you've reached his age. If you can't tell at fifty-five why poor human creatures play and kill and make fools of themselves, you'll have been a very lucky woman."
For an instant his voice dropped, the despondency, the restless ennui that Milbanke had previously noticed falling like a brief shadow over his anger. But the lapse was brief. With another laugh and a shrug of the shoulders, he turned suddenly, and, crossing the room, opened the door.
"Burke!" he called loudly across the hall. "Burke, bring more candles and another bottle of port—and the cards!"
At the words Clodagh rose.
"Father!" she exclaimed below her breath. Then her voice faltered. The involuntary note of protest and appeal was checked by some other emotion. With a swift movement she crossed the hearth, picked up her whip and cap, and, without another glance or word, walked out of the room, followed noiselessly by Nance.
Asshlin continued to stand by the door until the figures of his children had disappeared; then he turned back into the room.
"James," he said suddenly, "perhaps you don't think it, but one hair of that child's head is more precious to me than life. She's an Asshlin to the tips of her fingers. She's the whole race of us in one. The very way she repudiates us is proof enough for any man. I tell you the whole lot of us—lock, stock, and barrel—are looking at you out of her eyes."
Again he paused; then again he shook off his passing seriousness with nervous excitability, reseating himself at the table, as Burke entered.