Anyway, he paid for his whistle;
for he lost three hundred pounds."
"Three hundred pounds!" cried the terrible old maid. "Where ever did he
get them to lose?"
Severne divined that he had nothing to gain by fiction here; so he said,
sullenly, "I got them from Vizard; but I gave him value for them."
"You need not publish our private transactions, Ned," said Vizard. "Miss
Maitland, this is really not in your department."
"Oh, yes, it is," said she; "and so you'll find."
This pertinacity looked like defiance. Vizard rose from his chair, bowed
ironically, with the air of a man not disposed for a hot argument.
"In that case--with permission--I'll withdraw to my veranda and, in that
[he struck a light] peaceful--[here he took a suck] shade--"
"You will meditate on the charms of Ina Klosking."
Vizard received this poisoned arrow in the small of the back, as he was
sauntering out. He turned like a shot, as if a man had struck him, and,
for a single moment, he looked downright terrible and wonderfully unlike
the easy-going Harrington Vizard. But he soon recovered himself. "What!
you listen, do you?" said he; and turned contemptuously on his heel
without another word.
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