Part 31 (1/2)

”Did you? How much have you lost?”

”How do you know I've lost?”

”Why?” Mr Lintorn shrugged his shoulders. ”The man happens to be a cheat.”

”Don't--don't you say that again!”

”Why not? You would have seen it yourself if you had had your wits about you. He was cheating all the time.”

”You--!”

Mr Davison struck at his friend. Mr Lintorn warded off the blow. Mr Davison struck again. The man was drunk and bent upon a row. It was impossible to avoid him without actually turning tail and fleeing. So Mr Lintorn let him have it. Mr Davison lay on his back among the cobble-stones. Mr Lintorn advanced to his a.s.sistance. The rec.u.mbent hero greeted him with a volley of abuse. Seeing that to persist would only be to bring about a renewal of hostilities, Mr Lintorn strolled off to the hotel alone, leaving Mr Davison to follow at his leisure.

CHAPTER III

The next morning Mr Davison did not put in an appearance at breakfast.

So Mr Lintorn went to look for him in his room. He knocked at the door.

”Who's there?” growled a voice within.

”Lintorn. May I come in?”

Without waiting for the required permission he entered. The hero was still in bed. There was that look about him which is noticeable in the ordinarily sober youth who has enjoyed the night before not wisely, but too well. And his eye--outside the actual organ--was a beautiful black. Mr Lintorn started at sight of these signs of mourning.

”Davison, I had no idea--”

”You had no idea of what, sir? What do you mean by entering my room?”

”I cannot express to you how ashamed of myself I feel. I--I had no idea that I had hit so hard.”

Mr Lintorn felt--too late--that this was one of those delicate subjects which are best avoided. But the words were spoken.

”Look here, Mr Lintorn: I chanced to stay in the same hotel with you at Nice, and it has suited me since, as a traveller, to adapt my movements to yours. Beyond that, you are a perfect stranger to me. You are, at best, but a chance acquaintance. Be so good as to consider that acquaintance dropped.”

Mr Davison spoke, or intended to speak, with the dignity and the hauteur which are appropriate to the travelling man of fas.h.i.+on, who has spent six weeks abroad. But such a character is difficult to maintain when one has ”hot coppers” and a black eye, and is lying in bed. None the less Mr Lintorn perceived that the present was not a favourable moment for argument. He fixed his gla.s.s in his eye, gave Mr Davison just one look, bowed, and left him to his dignity.

Mr Davison rang for his shaving-water, and the waiter who brought it was so indiscreet as to notice the gentleman's condition--the condition, that is, of what has been called his optic.

”_Mais, monsieur est blesse!_”

Mr Davison's knowledge of French was not peculiar for its extent, but it was sufficient to render him aware that the man exaggerated the actual fact.

”Get out!” he shouted.

The man got out, having learned, it is to be hoped, a lesson in tact.

When Mr Davison began to shave he found that his hand was shaky. His temper was ruffled, his head ached most dreadfully. The looking-gla.s.s revealed with terrible distinctness the state of his eye; it was really not surprising that the waiter had found it impossible to avoid making his little observation. In shaving--not, by the way, in his case an absolutely indispensable operation--he cut a gash about an inch and a half in length on the most prominent part of his chin.