"I shall then bring an action for assault," he said, "for I suppose you are not _vieux jeu_ enough to imagine I shall challenge you to fight. What will happen? The reasons for the quarrel will come out in open court. Will you like that? Will you like to pose as the defender of your wife's honour? Are you"--and Billy grew more animated--"are you so dense as not to know that the surest way of dragging it in the dust is to defend it, oh, successfully, I grant you, in the court? We live in an age, my dear Jack, in which violence has altogether ceased, and law, which is meant to take its place, defeats its own object. However successful your defence of both your action and of your wife's honour may be, surely you know that, if such a thing is made public at all, every one instantly says that there must have been something in it." He paused a moment, Jack saying nothing. "You are thinking that I am a cur and a coward," continued Billy. "You have also used offensive language to me. Take this, then. Do you consider yourself a good defender of your wife's honour? It is easy for you to box my ears, as you suggest, and think you have done a fine and manly action, but is all your conduct to her of a piece with that? Do you think that no one will say that it was the most arrant piece of humbug? If you had been beyond reproach in your married life, I do not say that I might not even have consented to shoot at you and let you shoot at me. But now, good God!" Jack started up, black and angry, and stood towering over the other. "Do you think you can speak to me like that?" he said, very quietly. For the moment Silly Billy expected to find himself on the floor, but not an eyelash quivered. He lounged against the chimney-piece, and flickered his cigarette-ash into the grate. "If you touch me, you will be sorry for it," he said. "If you say another offensive word to me, you will be sorry for it. I am not in the slightest degree afraid of you. If you had been faithful to your wife, I should say your behaviour was admirable. As it is, it is merely childish. We are rotten folk, you and I; but I have the pull over you because I am not a hypocrite about it. Well, I don't want to call you names. I had better get back, had I not? The hand must be over, and they will be waiting for me." Jack sat down. "Wait a minute," he said. "Certainly, if you have anything agreeable to say," remarked Billy. "For myself, I have done. And it was rather a weak no-trump. Wonder what my partner had?" "Oh, damn your game!" said Jack. "I probably shall, when I get back," conceded Silly Billy. "What do you want to say?" "This only: We are rotten people, and I have got to think it all over." Silly Billy moved towards the door. "Oh, yes; that's all right enough," he said. "Not coming back, I suppose, are you?" He sauntered back into the card-room, where the hand was only just over. "Well, what luck?" he asked. "Whisky-and-soda, waiter." "Yes, my lord--large or small?"