“I have but to raise my voice and you are undone.”
“His voice was ever soft, gentle, and low, an excellent thing in Kenneth,” he parodied, laughing at me.
The girl said never a word, but her level eyes watched me steadily. No need of words to tell me that I was on trial! But I would not desist.
“You appear not to realize the situation,” I told him coldly. “Your life is in hazard.”
The man yawned in my face. “Not at all, I sit here as safe as if I were at White’s, and a devilish deal better satisfied. Situation piquant! Company of the best! Gad’s life, I cry content.”
“I think we talk at cross purposes. I am trying to have you understand that your position is critical, Sir Robert.”
Nonchalant yet watchful, indolent and yet alert, gracefully graceless, he watched me smilingly out of half-closed eyes; and then quietly fired the shot that brought me to.
“If you were not a gentleman, Montagu, the situation would be vastly different.”
“I do not see the point,” I told him; but I did, and raged at it.
“I think you do. Your lips are sealed. I am your rival”—he bowed to Aileen—“for the favour of a lady. If you put me out of the way by playing informer what appearance will it bear? You may talk of duty till the world ends, but you will be a marked man, despised by all—and most of all by Kenneth Montagu.”