‘Not I!’ said Otho, laying down the letters. ‘We’ve spent far too much money already in insurance. Insurance is all bosh. The mills are insured; and where’s the use of a thing, or the amusement, if you go and arrange against all accidents beforehand?’ At this novel view of the merits and uses of insurance, Gilbert gave a short laugh; but having some personal interest in the matter, presently resumed an air of gravity, and said— ‘Oh, you must not gamble with everything; and even if you do, it’s wiser to calculate your chances a bit, unless you are clean mad.’ ‘What answers have you sent, Camm?’ inquired Otho. ‘Those,’ replied Roger, pointing to some envelopes that lay on the desk. This extreme brevity, which for the life of him Roger could not have altered, seemed to have an irritating effect upon Otho. He glanced at Roger, and almost showed his teeth along with the scowl he gave. But he picked up the letters and read them. As for Roger, the mere presence of the other made him feel that his own power of self-restraint was not so great as he had, in a moment of despondency, imagined it to be. His blood was running with wild speed through every vein; his hands did not tremble, but he felt breathless, excited, furious; and as he happened to catch a glimpse of Otho’s face, dark, nearly hairless, and coarse in its very handsomeness, with its scowling brow and sinister smile, and recollected how, last night, he had seen that face bending with a more insolent expression than it wore even to-day, over the fair countenance of his Ada, and how the latter had been seen raised towards that of this man, with every sign of pleased and flattered self-complacency, he felt a longing to have his hands at Askam’s throat. Truly, he felt, he and these other two were no better suited to one another now than they had been fourteen years ago, when they had played together in the old garden at Thorsgarth. Gilbert, who was leaning against a desk, with his eyes half-closed, and looking tired and bored, was, as usual, taking it all in. He had been a witness of the scene last night, and Roger’s pale face and compressed lips now, and the glitter in his eyes as he looked towards his employer, were not lost upon him. ‘Come, Otho, haven’t you nearly done? It is time we were moving,’ he said. ‘Yes, I’m just ready,’ replied Otho, laying down the letters. ‘They’re all right, I think.’ He never interfered with anything that Roger did; his reading the letters was a form to be gone through, for he knew absolutely nothing of business of this kind, though he could have rattled off, correctly and nimbly, the pedigrees of twoscore celebrated racers. ‘Well,’ said Gilbert, once again, ‘won’t you think about the insurance?’ ‘No,’ retorted Otho, impatiently. ‘I’ve no money to spare for insurance.’