"A woman."
Lord Archibald spun round like a teetotum, a decanter in one hand, a tumbler in the other.
"A woman? Reggie? You--you don't mean Miss Jardine?"
Mr. Townsend's lips curled. In some subtle way his countenance was transfigured. The ease and the carelessness vanished. He became all bitterness and gall.
"Beaupré, I am inclined to think that you are the most consummate ass of my acquaintance. Why will you perpetually harp upon a single string? You are so utterly inept that the wonder is I have borne with you so long. Might I ask you not eternally to play the fool?"
Lord Archibald put down the decanter and the glass. The muscles of his face quivered as if he was about to be afflicted by an attack of St. Vitus' Dance.
"If anybody but you had spoken to me like that, at the very least he should never speak to me again."
The only effect which his visitor's fury had on Mr. Townsend was to make him still more scornful.
"Don't gas to me, my good fellow. Reserve that sort of thing for some other of your acquaintance. I regret that you should have rendered it necessary for me to remind you that you are under a considerable obligation to me, and I regret still more that you should have compelled me to ask if it is your intention to fulfil that obligation. I believe that even Scotchmen do occasionally fulfil their obligations."
His listener's face was a sickly yellow. Rage had made him calm.