Part 25 (1/2)
I offered him a chair and a cigar, and he came to the point with commendable rapidity.
”Leigh,” he said, directly he had lighted his cigar, ”is too small for Arthur Jukes and myself.”
”Ah, you have been talking it over and decided to move?” I said, delighted. ”I think you are perfectly right. Leigh _is_ over-built.
Men like you and Jukes need a lot of s.p.a.ce. Where do you think of going?”
”I'm not going.”
”But I thought you said----”
”What I meant was that the time has come when one of us must leave.”
”Oh, only one of you?” It was something, of course, but I confess I was disappointed, and I think my disappointment must have shown in my voice; for he looked at me, surprised.
”Surely you wouldn't mind Jukes going?” he said.
”Why, certainly not. He really is going, is he?”
A look of saturnine determination came into Ralph's face.
”He is. He thinks he isn't, but he is.”
I failed to understand him, and said so. He looked cautiously about the room, as if to rea.s.sure himself that he could not be overheard.
”I suppose you've noticed,” he said, ”the disgusting way that man Jukes has been hanging round Miss Trivett, boring her to death?”
”I have seen them together sometimes.”
”I love Amanda Trivett!” said Ralph.
”Poor girl!” I sighed.
”I beg your pardon?”
”Poor girl!” I said. ”I mean, to have Arthur Jukes hanging round her.”
”That's just what I think,” said Ralph Bingham. ”And that's why we're going to play this match.”
”What match?”
”This match we've decided to play. I want you to act as one of the judges, to go along with Jukes and see that he doesn't play any of his tricks. You know what he is! And in a vital match like this----”
”How much are you playing for?”
”The whole world!”
”I beg your pardon?”
”The whole world. It amounts to that. The loser is to leave Leigh for good, and the winner stays on and marries Amanda Trivett. We have arranged all the details. Rupert Bailey will accompany me, acting as the other judge.”