Rotherby's lip was curled. “Ha! You don't think, now, that you may have said too much?” Mr. Caryll stifled a yawn. “Do you?” he inquired blandly. “Ay, by God! Too much for a gentleman to leave unpunished.” “Possibly. But what gentleman is concerned in this?” “I am!” thundered Rotherby. “I see. And how do you conceive that you answer the description?” Rotherby swore at him with great choice and variety. “You shall learn,” he promised him. “My friends shall wait on you to-night.” “I wonder who will carry his message?” ventured Collis to the ceiling. Rotherby turned on him, fierce as a rat. “It is a matter you may discover to your cost, Sir Harry,” he snarled. “I think,” put in his grace very languidly, “that you are troubling the harmony that is wont to reign here.” His lordship stood still a moment. Then, quite suddenly, he snatched up a candlestick to hurl at Mr. Caryll. But he had it wrenched from his hands ere he could launch it. He stood a moment, discomfited, glowering upon his brother. “My friends shall wait on you to-night,” he repeated. “You said so before,” Mr. Caryll replied wearily. “I shall endeavor to make them welcome.” His lordship nodded stupidly, and strode to the door. His departure was observed in silence. On every face he read his sentence. These men--rakes though they were, professedly--would own him no more for their associate; and what these men thought to-night not a gentleman in town but would be thinking the same tomorrow. He had the stupidity to lay it all to the score of Mr. Caryll, not perceiving that he had brought it upon himself by his own aggressiveness. He paused, his hand upon the doorknob, and turned to loose a last shaft at them. “As for you others, that follow your bell-wether there,” and he indicated his grace, whose shoulder was towards him, “this matter ends not here.” And with that general threat he passed out, and that snug room at White's knew him no more. Major Gascoigne was gathering up the cards that had been flung down when first the storm arose. Mr. Caryll bent to assist him. And the last voice Lord Rotherby heard as he departed was Mr. Caryll's, and the words it uttered were: “Come, Ned; the deal is with you.” His lordship swore through his teeth, and went downstairs heavily. CHAPTER X. SPURS TO THE RELUCTANT Before Mr. Caryll left White's--which he did at a comparatively early hour, that he might be at home to receive Lord Rotherby's friends--not a man present but had offered him his services in the affair he had upon his hands. Wharton, indeed, was not to be denied for one; and for the other Mr. Caryll desired Gascoigne to do him the honor of representing him.