"I only repeated what you told me yourself."
"I am quite sure of my own intentions, and know that I need not be ashamed of them."
"Not if you have plenty of money. It all depends on that. If you have plenty of money, and your fancy goes that way, it is all very well. Come, we'll go upstairs."
The next day he saw Everett Wharton, who welcomed him back with warm affection. "He'll do nothing for me;--nothing at all. I am almost beginning to doubt whether he'll ever speak to me again."
"I tell you everything, you know," said Everett. "In January I lost a little money at whist. They got plunging at the club, and I was in it. I had to tell him, of course. He keeps me so short that I can't stand any blow without going to him like a school-boy."
"No;--to him no more than half-a-crown to you. I had to ask him for a hundred and fifty."
"No;--he didn't do that. Had it been ten times as much, if I owed the money, he would pay it. But he blew me up, and talked about gambling,--and--and--"
"I should have taken that as a matter of course."
"But I'm not a gambler. A man now and then may fall into a thing of that kind, and if he's decently well off and don't do it often, he can bear it."
"I thought your quarrel had been altogether about Parliament."
"Oh no! He has been always the same about that. He told me that I was going head foremost to the dogs, and I couldn't stand that. I shouldn't be surprised if he hasn't lost more at cards than I have during the last two years." Lopez made an offer to act as go-between, to effect a reconciliation; but Everett declined the offer. "It would be making too much of an absurdity," he said. "When he wants to see me, I suppose he'll send for me."