Part 25 (1/2)

That was exactly what Elsie had meant, and she knew in her heart now that she had been wrong: Pip was not that sort. Still, she was young and independent. Pip was young and tactless. An older and more experienced girl would have seen that Pip's warning was well worth listening to. An older and more experienced man would have delivered it in a different way. Neither of them being possessed of these advantages, the net result of Pip's impromptu effort was to invest Cullyngham with a halo of romantic mystery in the eyes of Elsie, who, after all, was only nineteen, and a daughter of Eve at that. Here were the elements of a pretty quarrel.

Five minutes later, after a hot altercation, Elsie sailed into the ballroom alone, with her small and admirably formed nose slightly in the air, leaving Pip, tardily recalling Raven's advice, to curse his tactless tongue on the settee behind the screen.

To him entered young Gresley. He dropped listlessly on to the settee.

”Pip,” he said, ”I'm in a devil of a hole.”

”What's the matter?”

”I'm dipped--badly.”

”Oh--money?”

”Yes.”

Pip's eyes suddenly gleamed.

”Cullyngham?”

Gresley nodded.

Pip rose and pulled the screen completely across the pa.s.sage.

”They'll think we're a spooning couple,” he said. ”Go on.”

Gresley told his story. Flattered by Cullyngham's invitation, he had agreed to play picquet--a game with which he enjoyed only what may be called a domestic acquaintance--in the pavilion before lunch.

”I suppose we will play the usual club points?” Cullyngham had said.

”And like a blamed fool,” continued Gresley, ”I didn't like to let on that I didn't know what the usual club points were, but just nodded. I lost all the time, and when he added up at one o'clock I owed him five hundred points. He said I must have my revenge in the afternoon if it went on raining. Well, as you know, it did go on raining, and by the end of the day I was fifteen hundred points down. Then he told me, what I hadn't had the pluck to ask him, what we were playing for. He said that the ordinary club points were a fiver a hundred, and that I owed him seventy-five pounds.”

”The d----d swine!” said Pip through his teeth.

”_Are_ they the ordinary club points, Pip?” said Gresley anxiously.

”Ordinary club grandmother! It's a swindle. He probably cheated in the actual play, too. What are you going to do?”

”I shall pay.”

”Quite right,” said Pip approvingly. ”Pay first, and then we can go for him without prejudice. Have you got the money?”

The boy shook his head dismally. ”About ten pounds,” he said.

”I could raise a couple of fivers, perhaps,” said Pip. ”But in any case your best plan is to go straight and make a clean breast of it to your Governor.”

”Pip, I couldn't! He's fearfully simple and straight in these things. It would break him up.”

”I know him well enough,” said Pip, ”to be quite certain that you ought to tell him. He can't eat you, and he'll respect your pluck in being frank about it. If he finds out by accident, though--”