“You say it as easily as if I had asked whether you ever took the air in the park. ’Slife, I have never known you flinch. There was always a certain d——d rough plainness about you, but you play the game.”
“’Tis a poor hound falls whining at the whip when there is no avoiding it.”
“You will never accept their offer of a pardon on those terms. I know you, man. Y’are one of those fools hold by honour rather than life, and damme! I like you for it. Now I in your place——”
“——Would do as I do.”
“Would I? I’m not so sure. If I did it would be no virtue, but an obstinacy not to be browbeat.” Then he added, “You would give anything else on earth for your life, I suppose?”
“Anything else,” I told him frankly.
“Anything else?” he repeated, his eyes narrowing. “No reservations, Montagu?”
Our eyes crossed like rapiers, each searching into the other’s very soul.
“Am I to understand that you are making me an offer, Sir Robert?”
“I am making you an offer of your life.”