Tony seemed rather subdued on the homeward drive, but his spirits rallied when they reached the Cottage, where Robin was waiting for them at the gateway, with Billy Brewster hovering importantly in the middle distance. Maria welcomed the new arrival with open arms, and the tea she had prepared for the occasion was a rich display of what she could accomplish in the way of cakes and pasties when she “put her mind to it.” Tony did full justice to them and chaffed her unmercifully, to her huge delight, and for the moment one might have imagined him nothing but a big gay schoolboy, home for the holidays.
It was not until later on, when Robin had gone out again, and he and Ann were sitting smoking together under the latter’s favourite oak, that he unburdened his soul.
“I’m everlastingly grateful to you for answering my S.O.S. so promptly,” he said then. “Uncle Philip was simply making life unbearable at home.”
Ann was swinging gently in the hammock, while Tony had flung himself down at full length on the sun-warmed turf. Her eyes rested on him reflectively.
“How was that?” she asked.
“Oh”—impatiently—“the usual thing, of course! Money! I asked him to let me have a hundred or two extra, and he simply went straight up in the air over it.”
“A hundred or two! Oh, Tony, have you got into debt again?”
“I haven’t been running up bills, if that’s what you mean. But I’ve had bad luck at cards—and of course I had to square things up.”
Ann suppressed a sigh. It was the same old story—that ineradicable gaming spirit which had come down from sire to son through half a dozen generations, and which seemed to have concentrated in full strength in the offspring of poor Dick Brabazon.
A few questions elicited the facts. Following upon his return from Switzerland Tony had been playing cards regularly, with, as he explained, “the most infernal luck—I made an absolute corner in Yarboroughs night after night.” The set of people with whom he mixed played unusually high points—Brett Forrester’s set, as a matter of fact, although he himself had cleared out of town early in order to go yachting. Then, after losing far more than he could afford to pay, Tony had tried to recoup his fortunes by backing a few horses, and another hundred had been added to his original losses. Ultimately, when he and his uncle had gone down to Lorne, he had been compelled to make a clean breast of things and ask for money with which to settle his debts. “Debts of honour,” he had termed them, and the description acted like a red rag to a bull. Sir Philip had lost his temper completely.