Ann was swinging gently in the hammock, while Tony had flung himself down at full length on the sun-warmed turf. Her eyes rested on him reflectively. "How was that?" she asked. "Oh"--impatiently--"the usual thing, of course! Money! I asked him to let me have a hundred or two extra, and he simply went straight up in the air over it." "A hundred or two! Oh, Tony, have you got into debt again?" "I haven't been running up bills, if that's what you mean. But I've had bad luck at cards--and of course I had to square things up." Ann suppressed a sigh. It was the same old story--that ineradicable gaming spirit which had come down from sire to son through half a dozen generations, and which seemed to have concentrated in full strength in the offspring of poor Dick Brabazon. A few questions elicited the facts. Following upon his return from Switzerland Tony had been playing cards regularly, with, as he explained, "the most infernal luck--I made an absolute corner in Yarboroughs night after night." The set of people with whom he mixed played unusually high points--Brett Forrester's set, as a matter of fact, although he himself had cleared out of town early in order to go yachting. Then, after losing far more than he could afford to pay, Tony had tried to recoup his fortunes by backing a few horses, and another hundred had been added to his original losses. Ultimately, when he and his uncle had gone down to Lorne, he had been compelled to make a clean breast of things and ask for money with which to settle his debts. "Debts of honour," he had termed them, and the description acted like a red rag to a bull. Sir Philip had lost his temper completely. "'Debts of honour' you call 'em, you young jackanapes!" he had raged. "I call them debts of the dirtiest dishonour you could pick up out of the gutter!" He swept Tony's indignant remonstrances to one side. "If you call it honourable to play for money when you haven't got it to pay with if you lose, a sense of honour's a different thing from what it was in my young days. Why--why--why--" he spluttered, "it's no better than stealing! You deserve a damn good hiding, let me tell you, and it's what you'll get one of these days if you can't keep straight, you young devil!" The old man had stormed on for a heated half-hour or so, while Tony had stood by and listened to him, white-faced and furious, his haughty young head flung up and his teeth clenched to keep back the bitter answers that fought for utterance. Finally, his hand still shaking with rage, Sir Philip had written a cheque that would cover his nephew's losses. "That's the last time I pay your gambling debts," he had said as he flung down the pen. "You've an allowance of six hundred a year, and if you exceed that again I'll fire you out of the house neck and crop, and be damned to you!" "I'll go now, sir--at once, if you wish!" Tony had returned with cool insolence.