“Why do you delight in raking up unpleasant memories?” he said, in a half-savage, half-peevish tone. “George Vane was only one amongst many others.”
“Most certainly! Amongst a great many others.”
“And if I happened to play écarté better than most of the men we knew——”
“To say nothing of that pretty little trick with an extra king in the lining of your coat sleeve, which I taught you, my friend.—But about George Vane, about the friend of George Vane, about the promise——”
“George Vane’s friend is my great-uncle, Maurice de Crespigny; and the promise was made when the two were young men at Oxford.”
“And the promise was——”
“A romantic, boyish business, worthy of the Minerva Press. If either of the two friends died unmarried, he was to leave all his possessions to the other.”
“Supposing the other to survive him. But Monsieur de Crespigny cannot leave his money to the dead. George Vane is dead. You need no longer fear him.”
“No, I have no reason to fear him!”
“But of whom, then, have you fear?”