“You're never going to make a serious business of this stupid affair?” said Ross, leaning against the horse and slapping the sole of one foot with the whip.
“Take off your coat,” said Philip in a thick voice.
“Can I help it if a pretty girl——” began Ross.
“Will you strip?” cried Philip.
Ross laughed. “Ah! now I remember our talk of the other night. But you don't mean to say,” he said, flipping at the flies at the horse's head, “that because the little woman is forgetting the curmudgeon that's abroad——”
Philip strode up to him with clenched hands and quivering lips and said, “Will you fight?”
Ross laughed again, but the blood was in his face, and he said tauntingly, “I wouldn't distress myself, man. Daresay I'll be done with the girl before the fellow——”
“You're a scoundrel,” cried Philip, “and if you won't stand up to me——”
Ross flung away his whip. “If I must, I must,” he said, and then threw the horse's reins round the charred arm of a half-destroyed gorse tree.
A minute afterwards the young men stood face to face.