“And I assure you, on my word of honour, that I am not mistaken.”
“Even granting for a moment that, in mistake, I did play the wrong ball, you cannot suppose that I would knowingly attempt to cheat you for the sake of a paltry ten pounds.”
“But I can and do suppose it,” said Osmond, vehemently. “The fact of your being a rich man has nothing to do with it. I have known a marquis cheat at cards for the sake of half a sovereign. Why shouldn’t you try to cheat me out of ten pounds?”
“Your experience of the world, Mr. Osmond, seems to have been a very unfortunate one,” said Lionel, coldly.
“Perhaps it has, and perhaps it hasn’t,” said Osmond, savagely. “Anyhow it has taught me to be on the look-out for rogues.”
“Osmond, are you mad, or drunk, or both?” cried Kester.
“A little of both,” said Lionel, sternly. “If he were not under my roof, I would horsewhip him till he went down on his knees and proclaimed himself the liar and bully he really is.”
Osmond was in the act of lifting a glass of brandy-and-seltzer to his lips as Lionel spoke. He waited, without drinking, till Lionel had done. “You called me a liar, did you?” he said. “Then, take that!” and as he spoke, he flung the remaining contents of the glass into Lionel’s face, and sent the glass itself crashing to the other side of the room.
Another instant and Dering’s terrible fingers were closed round Osmond’s throat. This last insult was more than he could bear. His self-control was flung to the winds. Osmond’s nerveless frame quivered and shook helplessly in the strong man’s grasp. He was as powerless to help himself as any child would have been. His eyes were starting from his head, and his face beginning to turn livid, when Kester started forward.
“Don’t choke him, Li,” he said. “Don’t kill the beggar quite.”