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Malcourt said quietly: "You've never before given such a reason for discontinuing card-playing. What's your real reason?" Portlaw was silent. "Did you quit a thousand to the bad, Billy?" "Yes, I did." "Then why not get it back?" "I don't care to play," said Portlaw shortly. The eyes of the two men met. "Are you, by any chance, afraid of our fox-faced guest?" asked Malcourt suavely.
Never mind; just hand me a cigarette and take away the tray. It's a case of being a very naughty boy, Hamil. How are you anyway, and what did you shoot?" Hamil greeted him briefly, but did not seem inclined to enter or converse. Malcourt yawned, glanced at the grape-fruit, then affably at Hamil. "I say," he began, "hope you'll overlook my rotten behaviour last time we met.
There was a shabby, neglected grave in the adjoining plot; he bent over, gathered up his flowers, and laid them on the slab of somebody aged ninety-three whose name was blotted out by wet dead leaves. Then he slowly returned to face Malcourt, and stood musing, gloved hands deep in his overcoat pockets. "If I could have understood you " he began, under his breath, then fell silent.
That is to say, Lady Tressilvain did the discussing; Malcourt, bland, amiable, remained uncommunicatively polite, parrying everything so innocently that his sister, deceived, became plainer in her questions concerning the fortune he was supposed to have married, and more persistent in her suggestions of a winter in New York a delightful and prolonged family reunion, in which the Tressilvains were to figure as distinguished guests and virtual pensioners of everybody connected with his wife's family.
Malcourt had been there for a few days, but was returning to prepare for the series of house-parties arranged by Portlaw who had included Cecile Cardross and Philip Gatewood in the first relay.
"Sure," nodded Malcourt, "and there's too many shooting items in 'em every day to make gun-play available for a novel.... Once, when I thought I could write just after I left college they took me aboard a morning newspaper on the strength of a chance I had to discover a missing woman.
Read the French classics." Wayward growled; Malcourt, who always took a malicious amusement in stirring him up, grinned at him sideways. "No man is fit for decent society until he's lost all his illusions," he said, "particularly concerning women."
"I merely mentioned these things " He waved his hand to check any possible eulogy of himself from Malcourt. "I'll merely say this: that when I make up my mind to settle anything " He waved his hand again, condescendingly. "That man," thought Malcourt, "will be done for in a year. Any woman could have had him; the deuce of it was to find one who'd take him. I think she's found."
The rings and a number of other details had been left behind addressed to the count. "The trouble will be," said Malcourt, "that you will miss the brightness and frivolity of things. That kitten won't compensate." "Do you think so? I haven't had very much of anything even kittens," she said, picking up the soft ball of fur and holding it under her chin.
He hummed a bar or two of a new waltz, took a puff at his cigarette, winked affably at the idol, put on his coat, and without a second glance at the glass went out whistling a lively tune. Hamil, dressed for dinner, but looking rather worn and fatigued, passed him in the hall. "You've evidently had a hard day," said Malcourt; "you resemble the last run of sea-weed.
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