pursued.

"Lord" Bill glanced round the room. He saw that Lablache had
disappeared.

"Well, you see, Lablache has taken a lot of money out of all of us.
Naturally we wish to get it back," he said quietly, as if in defense of
her uncle's doings.

"Yes, I know. And--do you?" The girl's tone was cutting.

"Lord" Bill shrugged. Then,--

"As yet I have not had that pleasure."

"And if I know anything of Lablache you never will," put in Mrs. Abbot,
curtly. "He is not given to parting easily. The qualification most
necessary amongst gentlemen in the days of our grandfathers was keen
gambling. You and John, had you lived in those days, might have aspired
to thrones."

"Yes--or taken to the road. You remember, even then, it was necessary to
be a 'gentleman' of the road."

"Lord" Bill laughed in his lazy fashion. His keen gray eyes were half
veiled with eyelids which, seemed too weary to lift themselves. He was a
handsome man, but his general air of weariness belied the somewhat eagle
cast of countenance which was his. Mrs. Abbot, watching him, thought
that the deplorable lassitude which he always exhibited masked a very
different nature. Jacky possibly had her own estimation of the man.