“I haven’t, but I paid his gaming debts only on his promise that he would incur no more of them.”

“His promise—! Good God, Waldo, you don’t depend on that, do you?”

“But I do, Laurie won’t go back on his word: witness his rage today, only because I’ve compelled him to pledge it!”

“Once a gamester always a gamester!”

“My dear George, Laurie is no more a gamester than I am!” replied Sir Waldo, amused. “All he wishes to do is to sport a figure in the world. Do believe that I know him much better than you do, and take that frown off your face!” He slipped his hand within his cousin’s arm, grasping it lightly. “Instead, tell me this, old chap! Do you want Broom Hall? Because, if you do—and you need not fly up into the boughs!—I hope you know you’ve only to—”

“I do not!” interrupted George, with unnecessary violence. “Merely because I said I thought it an odd start in Cousin Joseph to have left his property to you—By the bye, my aunt didn’t like it above half, did she?”

“No—most understandable! But I really can’t feel that Lindeth stands in the least need of Broom Hall.”

“Oh, lord, no!—any more than I do! Bless the boy, he never gave it a thought! You know, Waldo, it’s my belief he’s going to cut up all her hopes! Ever since he came down from Oxford she’s been trying to push him into the first style of fashion—and into an eligible marriage—and then, when there isn’t a ton party he ain’t invited to attend, what does he do but beg you to let him go with you into the wilds of Yorkshire! I promise you, I was hard put to it not to burst out laughing at the look in her face when young Julian said the Season was a dead bore! Mark me if she don’t prevent his going with you!”

“She won’t even make the attempt.