“Nobody is going to fight a duel, if that is what you mean,” said Markham, quietly turning round. “Gaunt has, for as simple as he stands there, beaten me at billiards, and I can’t stand under the affront. Didn’t you lick me, Gaunt?”
“It was an accident,” said Gaunt. “If that is all, you are very welcome to your revenge.”
“Listen to his modesty, which, by-the-by, shows a little want of tact; for am I the man to be beaten by an accident?” said Markham, with his chuckle of self-ridicule. “Come along, Gaunt.”
Lady Markham detained Sir Thomas with a look as he rose to accompany them. She gave Captain Gaunt her hand, and a gracious, almost anxious smile. “Markham is noted for bad hours,” she said. “You are not very strong, and you must not let him beguile you into his evil ways.” She rose too, and took Sir Thomas by the arm as the young man went away. “Did you hear what he said? Do you think it was only billiards he meant? My heart quakes for that poor boy and the poor people he belongs to. Don’t you think you could go after them and see what they are about?”
“I will do anything you please. But what good could I do?” said Sir Thomas. “Markham would not put up with any interference from me—nor the other young fellow either, for that matter.”
“But if you were there, if they saw you about, it would restrain them: oh, you have always been such a true friend. If you were but there.”
“There: where?” There came before the practical mind of Sir Thomas a vision of himself, at his sober age, dragged into he knew not what nocturnal haunts, like an elderly spectre, jeered at by the pleasure-makers. “I will do anything to please you,” he said, helplessly. “But what can I do? It would be of no use. You know yourself that interference never does any good.”
Frances stood by aghast, listening to this conversation. What did it mean? Of what was her mother afraid? Presently Lady Markham took her seat again, with a return to her usual smiling calm. “You are right, and I am wrong,” she said. “Of course we can do nothing. Perhaps, as you say, there is no real reason for anxiety.” (Frances observed, however, that Sir Thomas had not said this.) “It is because the boy is not well off, and his people are not well off—old soldiers, with their pensions and their savings. That is what makes me fear.”
“Oh, if that is the case, you need have the less alarm. Where there’s not much to lose, the risks are lessened,” Sir Thomas said, calmly.
When he too was gone, Frances crept close to her mother. She knelt down beside the chair on which Lady Markham sat, grave and pale, with agitation in her face. “Mother,” she whispered, taking her hand and pressing her cheek against it, “Markham is so kind—he never would do poor George any harm.”