Stormont went to look after Newcombe. He promised to join them shortly in the billiard-room, as the night was still young. He came in looking rather relieved, and proposed a three-handed game. “I’ve set the poor chap in front of a bottle of whisky; it will do him good after his privations,” he said genially. “I hope, though, he won’t take too much; he has a little weakness in that direction.” They had not played more than half an hour when the door opened, and the shabby figure of Mr. Newcombe appeared. His face was very flushed, there was no doubt about his condition. His gait was uncertain, and his voice was decidedly thick. Advancing towards the billiard-table, he looked at his host with a very unfriendly expression, in which Lydon saw, or perhaps fancied he saw, a hint of menace. “Look here, Stormont, my boy. Old pal as you may have been, I’m not going to stand much more of this sort of thing. I’m being treated in a way I don’t like. It’s devilish unhandsome, to say the least of it.” The more than half-drunken man was meditating a scene in revenge for some real or fancied grievance. Gloria paled and reddened by turns and looked apprehensively at her uncle. Lydon waited developments. Would this fellow in his cups, and without the least control over his faculties, blurt out something that would give the lie to Stormont’s hastily concocted story? CHAPTER ELEVEN Stormont himself seemed quite taken aback by this almost savage onslaught, almost as deprived of self-control as Newcombe himself. “What are you complaining of?” he asked, in a voice that was scarcely audible. The man whom his accent declared to be a Colonial, answered in his thick utterance: “I don’t say anything about not being asked to dine with your swell friends, they’re not my kidney, and I’d rather have their room than their company. But after they’d all gone, you might have introduced me to your family.” He pointed a shaking forefinger at the shrinking Gloria, who was immensely afraid of a drunken man. Stormont was pretty liberal in his potations, but he never got into anything approaching this condition. “This pretty girl, I take it, is your niece. And this, I suppose, is her young man you told me about. Looks a bit stuck-up, I fancy, like the young feller who brought me my dinner. But I daresay I shall find him a good sort when we’re better acquainted.” He walked with his unsteady gait towards the table on which the ever-thoughtful butler had placed refreshments. The action seemed to rouse Stormont from his trance. “Stop it,” he shouted in a voice of thunder. “Stop it. You’ve had more than you can carry already.” But he was too late, Newcombe had already filled a tumbler half-full of raw whisky and tossed it down his throat as if it had been water. Having done this, his manner seemed to change. From a mood very nearly approaching ferocity, he lapsed into one of maudlin sentimentality. A weak smile overspread his bearded countenance.