Voices. Two men were speaking near the curb-door. She turned her head
involuntarily in this direction. There were no lights in the frontage
before which stood her cab, which intervened between the Brocken haze
in the street, throwing a square of Stygian shadow against the fog,
with right and left angles of aureola. She could distinguish no shapes.
"Cheer up, old top; you're in hard luck."
"I'm a bally ass."
"No, no; only a ripping good sporty game all the way through."
Oddly enough, Kitty sensed the irony. She wondered if the speaker's
companion did.
"Well, a wager's a wager."
"And you're the last chap to welch a square bet. What's the odds? My
word, I didn't urge you to change the stakes."
"Didn't you?"
The voice was young and pleasant; and Kitty was sure that the owner's
face was even as pleasant as his voice. What had he wagered and lost?
"If you're really hard pressed. . . ."
"Hard pressed! Man, I've nothing in God's world but two guineas, six."
"Oh, I say now!"
"Its the truth."
"If a fiver will help you. . . ."
"Thanks. A wager's a wager. I've lost. I was a bally fool to play
cards. Deserve what I got. Six months; that's the agreement. A
madman's wager; but I'll stick."
"Six months; twelve o'clock, midnight, November thirteenth. It's the
date, old boy; that's what hoodooed you, as the Americans say."
Kitty wasn't sure that the speaker was English; if he was, he had lost
the insular significance of his vowels. Still, it was, in its way, as
pleasant a voice as the other's. There was no doubt about the younger
man; he was English to the core, English in his love of chance, English
in his loyalty to his word; stupidly English. That he was the younger
was a trifling matter to deduce: no young man ever led his elder into
mischief, harmful or innocuous.
"Six months. It's a joke, my boy; a great big laugh for you and me,
when there's nothing left in life but toddies and churchwardens. Six
months."
"I dare say I can hang on till that time is over. Well, good night!
No letters, no addresses."
"Exact terms. Six months from date I'll be cooling my heels in your
ante-room."
"Cavenaugh, if it's anything else except a joke. . . ."
"Oh, rot! It was your suggestion. I tell you, it's a lark, nothing
more. A gentleman's word."
"I'll start for my diggings."