He glanced again at Laurence, not so much folding his lips as gripping them tightly together, to keep back the retort he knew Waldo didn’t wish him to utter. From vapourings about the injustice of fate, Laurence, working himself into a passion, was becoming more particular in his complaints. Any stranger listening to him would have supposed that Waldo was wealthy at his expense, Julian thought indignantly, certainly that Waldo had always treated him shabbily. Well, whether Waldo liked it or not, he was not going to sit meekly silent any longer!

But before he could speak George had intervened, saying in a voice of grim warning: “Take care! If anyone has cause to be grateful to Waldo, you have, you distempered young Jack-at-warts!”

“Oh, George, don’t be a fool!” begged Sir Waldo.

His stolid senior paid no heed to this, but kept his stern gaze on Laurence. “Who paid your Oxford debts?” he demanded. “Who gets you out of sponging-houses? Who saved you from the devil’s own mess, not a month ago? I know to what tune you were hit at that hell in Pall Mall!—no, it wasn’t Waldo who told me, so you needn’t cast any of your black looks at him! The Sharps tried on the grand mace with you, didn’t they? Lord, it was all hollow for them! You were born a bleater!”

“That’s enough!” Waldo interrupted.

“It is! More than enough!” said George rebelliously.

“Tell me, Laurie,” said Waldo, ignoring this interpolation, “do you want a house in Yorkshire?”

“No, but—what do you want with it? Why should you have it? You’ve got Manifold—you’ve got a town house— you’ve got that place in Leicestershire—and—you ain’t even a Calver!”

“And what the devil has that to say to anything?” struck in George. “What have the Calvers to do with Manifold, pray? Or with the house in Charles Street? Or with—”