Then came a very difficult task, to tell Ronald Thoyne that their little romance was ended and that she was going to marry Sir Philip Clevedon. Thoyne seems to have written straight off to Billy Clevedon, in which he was wise, and then went and had a row with Sir Philip, which was foolish.
Billy Clevedon as soon as he received Thoyne’s letter seems to have rushed off to Midlington where he summoned both Thoyne and Kitty to meet him. There under pressure from him, not unassisted perhaps by Thoyne, she told the story of her interview with Sir Philip.
“The swine!” Billy cried. “The unbuttered swine! I’ll wring his filthy neck for him. You’ll not marry him, Kitty, I’ll do for him first.”
He was very angry and swore mightily, but they paid little heed to his wrath. It was characteristic of him to be a trifle over-emphatic in his expressions.
“I asked him to lend me some money, it is true,” he said, “but it wasn’t as much as he told you and it didn’t matter in that way. I was in a hole but that was nothing new and there was no disgrace attached to it. But I’ll settle it—you leave to me. Kiss Ronny Thoyne and make it up with him.”
Billy took two or three turns up and down the room, spitting out the words as he went.
“It’s blackmail,” he continued. “But of course it’s nonsense. He can’t make her if—does she want to marry him?”
“She does not,” Thoyne told him promptly.
“No, I should think not. He’s twice her age and more. But I see his game—he must be an infernal cad. I didn’t suspect that of him. He is cold and selfish but I did not think he was that sort of reptile. I knew nothing of this, Thoyne—you believe that, don’t you. I am a mixture like most men but I am not that sort.”
He resumed his restless pacing to and fro.