"Say, Dering, it ain\'t twelve o\'clock yet. You\'ll give me half an hour in the billiard-room before going to roost?"
Percy Osmond was the speaker. He was getting out of the brougham which had brought the three gentlemen back from Pincote, where they had been dining. His voice was thick, and his gait unsteady. It was evident that he had been indulging too freely in Squire Culpepper\'s old port.
"You\'ve surely had enough billiards for one night," said Lionel, good-humouredly. "I should have thought that the thrashing you gave young Cope would have satisfied you till to-morrow morning."
"I want to thrash you as I thrashed him."
"You shall thrash me as much as you like in the morning."
"This is what they call country hospitality!" said Osmond, turning to Kester. "Condemned to go to bed at eleven-thirty, like so many virtuous peasants in an opera. No more brandy, no more cigars, no more billiards. Nothing but everlasting bed. How very good we are in the country!"
Kester laughed. "I told you that you would soon grow tired of the rural districts," he said.
"The rural districts themselves are all very nice and proper. I\'ve nothing to say against them," said Mr. Osmond, as he sat down deliberately on the stairs, for they were all in the house by this time. "It\'s the people who live in them that I complain of. To send your guests to bed at eleven-thirty against their will, and to decline a simple game of billiards with one of them because you\'re afraid to acknowledge that he\'s the better player of the two--can this be your old English hospitality?"
"My dear Osmond, I will play you a game of billiards with pleasure, if your mind is so set on it," said Lionel. "I had no idea that you were so entêté in the matter. Come along. I dare say the lamps are still alight."
"Spoken like a nobleman," said Osmond, with tipsy gravity. "I accept your apology. Just order up some brandy and seltzer, there\'s a good fellow. St. George, you\'ll come and mark for us?"
"With pleasure," said Kester. "I\'ll join you in two minutes." He left them at the top of the stairs, they going towards the billiard-room. He was anxious to know whether Pierre had got back from London.
Yes, there sat Pierre in the dressing-room, quiet, watchful, and alert as ever. "Everything gone off all right?" said Mr. St. George.
"Everything has gone off quite right, sir," said Pierre.
"There will be no hitch as regards the telegram to-morrow morning, eh?"
"None whatever, sir."
"You need not sit up for me."
"Very well, sir."
"And yet--on second thoughts--you had perhaps better do so."
"Yes, sir."
Kester took off his dress-coat, put on an old shooting-jacket and a smoking-cap, and then went off to the billiard-room.
"Monsieur St. George means mischief to-night," said Pierre, smiling to himself, and rubbing his hands slowly. "It is not very often I see that light in his eye. When I do see it, I know it means no good to somebody."
Kester found the two men chalking their cues. A servant was mixing a tumbler of brandy-and-seltzer for Osmond.
"I\'ll play you one game, a hundred up," said Osmond, as soon as the servant had left the room; "and I\'ll back my own play for ten pounds."
"You know that I never bet," said Lionel.
"I wouldn\'t give the snuff of a candle for a fellow who hasn\'t the pluck to back his own play, or his own opinion," said Osmond, with a sneer.
"I don\'t mind taking you," said Kester, quickly.
"Done!" said Osmond.
Lionel could not repress a movement of annoyance.
Both he and Osmond were good billiard-players, but he was the better of the two.
This however was a point which Osmond, who was proud of his ability with the cue, would never concede. With Lionel billiard-playing was an easy, natural gift; with Osmond it was the result of intense study and application.
With the former it seemed the easiest thing in the world to play well--with the latter one of the most difficult. They had played much together during Osmond\'s visit to Park Newton, but Osmond could never lose with equanimity. He became disagreeable and quarrelsome the moment the game began to go against him, and, rather than have a scene under his own roof, Lionel would often play carelessly and allow his opponent to win game after game. Such had been his intention in the present case till Kester foolishly accepted Osmond\'s bet. After that, to have lost the game would have been to lose Kester\'s money also; and, foolish as was the bet, Lionel did not feel disposed to let Osmond benefit by it. Besides, to win Osmond\'s money was to touch him in his only vulnerable point, and it seemed to Lionel that he fully deserved to be made to smart.
The game began and went on with varying success. Osmond had drank far too much wine to play well, and Lionel, in a mood of utter indifference, missed stroke after stroke in a way that made Kester groan inwardly with vexation. Lionel, in truth, was disgusted with himself and disgusted with his opponent. "I\'d far sooner follow the plough all my life on Gatehouse Farm, than be condemned to associate very much with men like this one," he said to himself. "And yet the world calls him a gentleman."
"Call the game, St. George," cried Osmond, in his most insolent tone.
"Seventy-five--fifty-two, and your royal highness to play," said Kester.
"None of your sneers," said Osmond. "Seventy-five--fifty-two, eh?--Well, put me on three more--and three more--very carefully. A miss, by Jove! Ought to have had that middle pocket."
"Fifty-two--eighty-one," called St. George. "How does your ten pounds look now, eh?" asked Osmond, with a chuckle.
"Not very rosy, I must confess," said Kester, with a shrug of his shoulders, and an appealing glance at his cousin.
"I hope you are prepared to pay up if you lose," said Osmond, insolently.
Kester started to his feet, but Lionel laid a hand on his shoulder.
"The game is not lost yet, Mr. Osmond," he said, coldly, but courteously.
"I guess it\'s in a dying state as far as you\'re concerned," said Osmond, coughing his little effeminate cough.
Lionel played and made a brilliant break of thirty.
"Eighty-one--eighty-two," called Kester, and there was a triumphant ring in his voice as he did so.
Osmond, white with the rage he could not hide, said nothing. He laid down his cigar, chalked his cue carefully, played, and missed.
"Just like my luck!" he cried, with an oath. "Dering, you might give a fellow something decent to smoke," he added, as he flung his cigar into the grate.
"The cigars are good ones. I smoke them myself," said Lionel, quietly.
"Anyhow, they are not fit to offer to a gentleman,"
"I did not offer them to a gentleman. You helped yourself."
"Of course I did," he answered, not comprehending the irony of Lionel\'s remark. "And deuced bad smokes they are."
Lionel played and ran his score up to ninety-eight.
"Two more will make you game," said Kester.
"Two more would not have made him game if he hadn\'t played with my ball instead of his own," said Osmond, his lips livid with rage.
"I have not played with your ball instead of my own, Mr. Osmond."
"I repeat that you have. After the second cannon in your last break, you played with the wrong ball. You cannoned again, and then resumed play with your own ball."
"You are mistaken--indeed you are," said Lionel, earnestly.
"Oh, of course!" sneered Osmond. "It\'s not to be expected that you would say anything else."
"Did you see the stroke, Kester?" appealed Lionel.
"Certainly I did. You played with your own ball and not with Mr. Osmond\'s."
"Of course, Kester is bound to back up all we say! Our bankrupt relation can\'t afford to do otherwise. He has ten pounds on the game, and----"
"By Heaven, Osmond!" burst out Mr. St. George. Lionel again laid his hand on his cousin\'s shoulder.
"Mr. Osmond is my guest," he said, impressively. "In a moment of temper he has made use of certain expressions which he will be the first to regret to-morrow. Let us look upon the game as a drawn one, and, if need be, discuss it fully over breakfast in the morning."
"You have an uncommonly nice way of slipping out of a difficulty, Dering, I must confess. But it won\'t wash with me. The moment I find a man\'s not acting on the square, I brand him before the world as a cheat and a blackleg."
"Your language is very strong, Mr. Osmond."
"Not stronger than the case demands."
"I assure you again, on my word of honour, that you are mistaken in saying that I played with the wrong ball."
"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."
"You mean, contemptible hound!" said Dering, as he loosened his grasp and flung Osmond away: who staggered and fell to the ground, gasping for breath, and hardly knowing for the moment what had befallen him.
With a few wild gasps and a tug or two at his cravat, he seemed to partially recover himself. Raising himself on his left elbow, he put his right hand deep down inside his waistcoat, and from some secret pocket there he drew out what looked like a toy pistol, but which was a deadly weapon enough in competent hands. Before either Kester or Lionel knew what he was about, he had taken pointblank aim at the latter, and fired. But drink had made his hand unsteady, and the bullet intended for Lionel\'s brain passed harmlessly through his hair, and lodged in the panelling behind.
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