"If a fiver will help you. . . ."

"Thanks. A wager's a wager. I've lost. I was a bally fool to play
cards. Deserve what I got. Six months; that's the agreement. A
madman's wager; but I'll stick."

"Six months; twelve o'clock, midnight, November thirteenth. It's the
date, old boy; that's what hoodooed you, as the Americans say."

Kitty wasn't sure that the speaker was English; if he was, he had lost
the insular significance of his vowels. Still, it was, in its way, as
pleasant a voice as the other's. There was no doubt about the younger
man; he was English to the core, English in his love of chance, English
in his loyalty to his word; stupidly English. That he was the younger
was a trifling matter to deduce: no young man ever led his elder into
mischief, harmful or innocuous.

"Six months. It's a joke, my boy; a great big laugh for you and me,
when there's nothing left in life but toddies and churchwardens. Six
months."

"I dare say I can hang on till that time is over. Well, good night!
No letters, no addresses."

"Exact terms. Six months from date I'll be cooling my heels in your
ante-room."

"Cavenaugh, if it's anything else except a joke. . . ."

"Oh, rot! It was your suggestion. I tell you, it's a lark, nothing