t is all that matters," cried Westmacott.
"I'll not have her name on your lips at any time or in any place--no,
nor in any manner." His speech was thick from too much wine.

"You are drunk," cried indignant Lord Gervase with finality.

"Pot-valiant," Trenchard elaborated.

Mr. Wilding set down at last the glass which he had continued to
hold until that moment. He rested his hands upon the table, knuckles
downward, and leaning forward he spoke impressively, his face very
grave; and those present--knowing him as they did--were one and all lost
in wonder at his unusual patience.

"Mr. Westmacott," said he, "I do think you are wrong to persist in
affronting me. You have done a thing that is beyond forgiveness, and
yet, when I offer you this opportunity of honourably retrieving..." He
shrugged his shoulders, leaving the sentence incomplete.

The company might have spared its deep surprise at so much mildness.
There was but the semblance of it. Wilding proceeded thus of purpose
set, and under the calm mask of his long white face his mind worked
wickedly and deliberately. The temerity of Westmacott, whose nature was
notoriously timid, had surprised him for a moment. But anon, reading the
boy's mind as readily as though it had been a scroll unfolded for his
instruction, he saw that Westmacott, on the strength of his position
as his sister's brother, conceived himself immune. Mr. Wilding's avowed
courtship of the lady, the hopes he still entertained of winning her,
despite the aversion she was at pains to show him, gave Westmacott
assurance that Mr. Wilding would never elect to shatter his all too
slender chances by embroiling himself in a quarrel with her brother.
And--reading him, thus, aright--Mr. Wilding put on that mask of
patience, luring the boy into greater conviction of the security of
his position. And Richard, conceiving himself safe in his entrenchment
behind the bulwarks of his brothership to Ruth Westmacott, and heartened
further by the excess of wine he had consumed, persisted in insults he
would never otherwise have dared to offer.

"Who seeks to retrieve?" he crowed offensively, boldly looking up into
the other's face. "It seems you are yourself reluctant." And he laughed
a trifle stridently, and looked about him for applause, but found none.

"You are overrash," Lord Gervase disapproved him harshly.

"Not the first coward I've seen grow valiant at a table," put in
Trenchard by way of explanation, and mi