"If you harm this little girl, I 'll never take your hand in mine again. You hear, Percy? Do as you have said, and we are strangers forever."
"And why?" demanded his companion.
"Because I 'll not own friendship with so filthy a rogue as you will have proved yourself to be."
"Hum!" murmured Sir Percival, thoughtfully. "Then you will probably constitute yourself her protector?"
"If necessary, yes."
"And will no doubt seek to balk me by telling her what a villain you think me, lad?"
"You know better than that," replied Brooking, a reproachful tone perceptible in his voice.
"So I do," assented the baronet. "What do you say to making it a game? One hundred guineas I win."
The instinct of the gamester, without which no buck of the times was considered completely a gentleman in society's interpretation of the word, stirred in the blood of his lordship.
"Done," said he.