“Oh, come,” he said, “Miss Waring, Frances. (May I call you Frances? It seems unnatural to call you Miss Waring, for, though I only saw you for the first time a little while ago, I have known you all your life.) Do you think it’s quite fair to compare me to Winterbourn? He was fifty when he married Nelly, a fellow quite used up. At all events, I am young, and never was fast; and I don’t see,” he added, pathetically, “why a woman shouldn’t be able to care for me.”
“Oh, I did not mean that,” cried Frances, with penitence; “I only meant——”
“And you shouldn’t,” said Claude, shaking his head, “pay so much attention to what Nelly says. She makes herself out a martyr now; but she was quite willing to marry Winterbourn. She was quite pleased. It was a great match; and now she is going to get the good of it.”
“If being very unhappy is getting the good of it——!”
“Oh, unhappy!” said Claude. It was evident he held Mrs Winterbourn’s unhappiness lightly enough. “I’ll tell you what,” he said, “talking of unhappiness, I saw another friend of yours the other day who was unhappy, if you like—that young soldier-fellow, the Indian man. What do you call him?—Grant? No; that’s a Nile man. Gaunt. Now, if Lady Markham had taken him in hand——”
“Captain Gaunt!” said Frances, in alarm; “what has happened to him, Mr Ramsay? Is he ill? Is he——” Her face flushed with anxiety, and then grew pale.
“I can’t say exactly,” said Claude, “for I am not in his confidence; but I should say he had lost his money, or something of that sort. I don’t frequent those sort of places in a general way; but sometimes, if I’ve been out in the evening, if there’s no east in the wind, and no rain or fog, I just look in for a moment. I rather think some of those fellows had been punishing that poor innocent Indian man. When a stranger comes among them, that’s a way they have. One feels dreadfully sorry for the man; but what can you do?”
“What can you do? Oh, anything, rather than stand by,” cried Frances, excited by sudden fears, “and see—and see—— I don’t know what you mean, Mr Ramsay! Is it gambling? Is that what you mean?”
“You should speak to Markham,” he replied. “Markham’s deep in all that sort of thing. If anybody could interfere, it would be Markham. But I don’t see how even he could interfere. He is not the fellow’s keeper; and what could he say? The other fellows are gentlemen; they don’t cheat, or that sort of thing. Only, when a man has not much money, or has not the heart to lose it like a man——”
“Mr Ramsay, you don’t know anything about Captain Gaunt,” cried Frances, with hot indignation and excitement. “I don’t understand what you mean. He has the heart for—whatever he may have to do. He is not like you people, who talk about everybody, who know everybody. But he has been in action; he has distinguished himself; he is not a nobody like——”