"Pip" Part 25

That was exactly what Elsie had meant, and she knew in her heart now that she had been wrong: Pip was not that sort. Still, she was young and independent. Pip was young and tactless. An older and more experienced girl would have seen that Pip's warning was well worth listening to. An older and more experienced man would have delivered it in a different way. Neither of them being possessed of these advantages, the net result of Pip's impromptu effort was to invest Cullyngham with a halo of romantic mystery in the eyes of Elsie, who, after all, was only nineteen, and a daughter of Eve at that. Here were the elements of a pretty quarrel.

Five minutes later, after a hot altercation, Elsie sailed into the ballroom alone, with her small and admirably formed nose slightly in the air, leaving Pip, tardily recalling Raven's advice, to curse his tactless tongue on the settee behind the screen.

To him entered young Gresley. He dropped listlessly on to the settee.

"Pip," he said, "I'm in a devil of a hole."

"What's the matter?"

"I'm dipped--badly."

"Oh--money?"

"Yes."

Pip's eyes suddenly gleamed.

"Cullyngham?"

Gresley nodded.

Pip rose and pulled the screen completely across the pa.s.sage.

"They'll think we're a spooning couple," he said. "Go on."

Gresley told his story. Flattered by Cullyngham's invitation, he had agreed to play picquet--a game with which he enjoyed only what may be called a domestic acquaintance--in the pavilion before lunch.

"I suppose we will play the usual club points?" Cullyngham had said.

"And like a blamed fool," continued Gresley, "I didn't like to let on that I didn't know what the usual club points were, but just nodded. I lost all the time, and when he added up at one o'clock I owed him five hundred points. He said I must have my revenge in the afternoon if it went on raining. Well, as you know, it did go on raining, and by the end of the day I was fifteen hundred points down. Then he told me, what I hadn't had the pluck to ask him, what we were playing for. He said that the ordinary club points were a fiver a hundred, and that I owed him seventy-five pounds."

"The d----d swine!" said Pip through his teeth.

"_Are_ they the ordinary club points, Pip?" said Gresley anxiously.

"Ordinary club grandmother! It's a swindle. He probably cheated in the actual play, too. What are you going to do?"

"I shall pay."

"Quite right," said Pip approvingly. "Pay first, and then we can go for him without prejudice. Have you got the money?"

The boy shook his head dismally. "About ten pounds," he said.

"I could raise a couple of fivers, perhaps," said Pip. "But in any case your best plan is to go straight and make a clean breast of it to your Governor."

"Pip, I couldn't! He's fearfully simple and straight in these things. It would break him up."

"I know him well enough," said Pip, "to be quite certain that you ought to tell him. He can't eat you, and he'll respect your pluck in being frank about it. If he finds out by accident, though--"

"You are right, Pip. I'll do it."

"Good! If you'll do that, I'll promise you something in return. I'll give Master Cullyngham such a quarter of an hour of his own previous history that he'll leave the place to-morrow morning and never darken its doors, or any other doors I care to specify, again. Now, you write straight off to your Governor; or, better still, make an excuse and run up to town and see him to-morrow, and leave me to tackle friend Cullyngham. I think I shall enjoy my interview more than you will."

Mr. Rupert Cullyngham had divested himself of his dress-coat, and was engaged in unfastening a neatly tied white tie, when his bedroom door opened and Pip came in.

"Cullyngham," he said, in a matter-of-fact tone, "you must leave this house to-morrow morning."

Cullyngham turned and surveyed his visitor for a moment with some amus.e.m.e.nt. Then he said,--

"Certainly! No idea you had bought the place. Can I have a trap, or must I walk?"

Pip did not rise to the level of this airy badinage. On the contrary, he was brusque and rude.

"You will get your cheque all right," he continued. "It will reach you on Sunday morning, so there's no need to hang on here for it."

"May I inquire--_what_ cheque?"

"The money young Gresley owes you."

Cullyngham whistled softly.

"So it's to that young fool that I owe the honour of this visit," he said. "Look here, old chap--"

Pip broke in.

"Thanks, I can do without that. Let us have no rotten pretence on the subject. To be quite frank, I was rather surprised to find you in this house at all--so was Raven Innes. However, we decided not to make any remark--"

"That _was_ decent of you!"

Pip continued, meditatively--

"Ch.e.l.l had probably asked you here on your cricket reputation. However, as I find you can't refrain from behaving like the cad you are, even when asked down to a house like this, I have decided to take things in hand myself. You will make an excuse to the Ch.e.l.ls in the morning, and go straight away back--"

Cullyngham, who had been restraining himself with difficulty, turned suddenly round and advanced upon him.

"Get out!" he said, his eyes blazing.

Pip, who was lounging on the arm of a chair, never stirred.

"If you will sit down for five minutes," he observed steadily, "I'll give you a few reasons for my a.s.surance in this matter. The fact is, Cullyngham, you aren't in a position to retaliate. To-day, for instance, you were wearing the colours of your old school club. You are not a member. They don't elect people who have been--sacked. Also, I came across a friend of yours not long ago. She wanted your address, or rather her daughter did. Her name was--"

Cullyngham, whose face had been gradually changing from a lowering red to a delicate green, suddenly noticed that the door was standing ajar.

He hurried across the room, shut it, and turned the key.

Ten minutes later the door opened again, and Pip stepped out into the dark pa.s.sage. An item in his host's valedictory remarks took him back into the room again, and he stood holding the door-handle as he spoke.