The Gem Collector/Chapter 12

The Honorable Louis Wesson, meanwhile, having left the water side, lit a cigarette, and proceeded to make a moody tour of the grounds. He felt aggrieved with the world. One is never at one's best and sunniest when a rival has performed a brilliant and successful piece of cutting-out work beneath one's very eyes. Something of a jaundiced tinge stains one's outlook on life in such circumstances. Mr. Wesson did not pretend to himself that he was violently in love with Molly. But he certainly admired her, and intended, unless he changed his mind later on, to marry her.

He walked, drawing thoughtfully at his cigarette. The more he reviewed the late episode, the less he liked it. He had not seen Jimmy put Molly in the canoe, and her departure seemed to him a deliberate desertion. She had promised to play tennis with him, and at the last moment she had gone off with this fellow Pitt. Who was Pitt? He was always in the way—shoving himself in.

At this moment, a large, warm raindrop fell on his hand. From the bushes all round came an ever-increasing patter. The sky was leaden.

He looked round him for shelter. He had reached the garden in the course of his perambulations. At the far end was a summerhouse. He turned up his coat collar and ran.

As he drew near, he heard a slow and dirgelike whistling proceeding from the interior. Plunging in out of breath, just as the deluge began, he found Spennie seated at the little wooden table with an earnest expression on his face. The table was covered with cards.

“How Jim took exercise,” said Spennie, glancing up. “Hello, Wesson. By Jove, isn't it coming down!”

With which greeting he turned his attention to his cards once more. He took one from the pack in his left hand, looked at it, hesitated for a moment, as if doubtful whereabouts on the table it would produce the most artistic effect; and finally put it down, face upward. Then he moved another card from the table, and put it on top of the other one. Throughout the performance he whistled painfully.

Wesson regarded him with disfavor. “That looks damned exciting,” he said, He reserved his more polished periods for use in public. “What are you playing at?”

“Wha—a—a'?” said Spennie abstractedly, dealing another card.

“Oh, don't sit there looking like a frog,” said Wesson irritably. “Talk, man.

“What's the matter? What do you want? Hello, I've done it. No, I haven't. No luck at all. Haven't brought up a demon all day.”

He gathered up the cards, and began to shuffle. “Ah, lov',” he sang sentimentally, with a vacant eye on the roof of the summerhouse, “could I bot tell thee how moch”

“Oh, stop it!” said Wesson.

“You seem depressed, laddie. What's the matter? Ah, lov', could I bot tell thee”

“Spennie, who's this fellow Pitt?”

“Jimmy Pitt? Pal of mine. One of the absolute. Ay, nutty to the core, good my lord. Ah, lov', could I bot tell”

“Where did you meet him?”

“London. Why?”

“He and your sister seem pretty good friends.”

“I shouldn't wonder. Knew each other out in America. Bridge, bridge, ber-ridge, a capital game for two. Shuffle and cut and deal away, and let the lo-oser pay-ah. Ber-ridge”

“Well, let's have a game, then. Anything for something to do. Curse this rain! We shall be cooped up here till dinner at this rate.”

“Double dummy's a frightfully rotten game,” said Spennie. “Ever played picquet? I could teach it to you in five minutes.”

A look of almost awe came into Wesson's face, the look of one who sees a miracle performed before his eyes. For years he had been using all the large stock of diplomacy at his command to induce callow youths to play picquet with him, and here was this admirable young man, this pearl among young men, positively offering to teach him the game. It was too much happiness. What had he done to deserve this? He felt as a toil-worn lion might have felt if an antelope, instead of making its customary bee line for the horizon, had expressed a friendly hope that it would be found tender and inserted its head between his jaws.

“I—it's very good of you. I shouldn't mind being shown the idea.”

He listened attentively while Spennie explained at some length the principles which govern the game of picquet. Every now and then he asked a question. It was evident that he was beginning to grasp the idea of the game.

“What exactly is repicquing?” he asked, as Spennie paused.

“It's like this,” said Spennie, returning to his lecture.

“Yes, I see now,” said the neophyte.

They began playing. Spennie, as was only to be expected in a contest between teacher and student, won the first two hands. Wesson won the next.

“I've got the hang of it all right, now,” he said complacently. “It's a simple sort of game. Make it more exciting, don't you think, if we played for something?”

“All right,” said Spennie slowly, “if you like.”

He would not have suggested it himself, but after all, hang it, if the man simply asked for it It was not his fault if the winning of a hand should have given the fellow the impression that he knew all that there was to be known about picquet. Of course, picquet was a game where skill was practically bound to win. But After all, Wesson had plenty of money. He could afford it.

“All right,” said Spennie again. “How much?”

“Something fairly moderate. Ten bob a hundred?”

There is no doubt that Spennie ought at this suggestion to have corrected the novice's notion that ten shillings a hundred was fairly moderate. He knew that it was possible for a poor player to lose four hundred points in a twenty-minute game, and usual for him to lose two hundred. But he let the thing go.

“Very well,” he said.

Twenty minutes later, Mr. Wesson was looking somewhat ruefully at the score sheet. “I owe you eighteen shillings,” he said. “Shall I pay you, now, or shall we settle up in a lump after we've finished?”

“What about stopping now?” said Spennie. “It's quite fine out.”

“No, let's go on. I've nothing to do till dinner, and I'm sure you haven't.”

Spennie's conscience made one last effort. “You'd much better stop, you know, Wesson, really,” he said. “You can lose a frightful lot at this game.”

“My dear Spennie,” said Wesson stiffly, “I can look after myself, thanks. Of course, if you think you are risking too much, by all means”

“Oh, if you don't mind,” said Spennie, outraged, “I'm only too frightfully pleased. Only, remember I warned you.”

“I'll bear it in mind. By the way, before we start, care to make it a sovereign a hundred?”

Spennie could not afford to play picquet for a sovereign a hundred, or anything like it; but after his adversary's innuendo it was impossible for a young gentleman of spirit to admit the humiliating fact. He nodded.

“It's about time, I fancy,” said Mr. Wesson, looking at his watch an hour later, “that we were going in to dress for dinner.”

Spennie made no reply. He was wrapped in thought.

“Let's see, that's twenty pounds you owe me, isn't it?” continued Mr. Wesson. “No hurry, of course. Any time you like. Shocking bad luck you had.”

They went out into the rose garden.

“Jolly everything smells after the rain,” said Mr. Wesson. “Freshened everything up.”

Spennie did not appear to have noticed it. He seemed to be thinking of something else. His air was pensive and abstracted.