Winlow's leisurely tones again

"There was a child, I believe, and it died. And after that--I know there
was some story; you never could get to the bottom of it. Bellew chucked
his regiment in consequence. She's subject to moods, they say, when
nothing's exciting enough; must skate on thin ice, must have a man
skating after her. If the poor devil weighs more than she does, in he
goes."

"That's like her father, old Cheriton. I knew him at the club--one of
the old sort of squires; married his second wife at sixty and buried her
at eighty. Old 'Claret and Piquet,' they called him; had more children
under the rose than any man in Devonshire. I saw him playing half-crown
points the week before he died. It's in the blood. What's George's
weight?--ah, ha!"

"It's no laughing matter, Brandwhite. There's time for a hundred up
before dinner if you care for a game, Winlow?"

The sound of chairs drawn back, of footsteps, and the closing of a door.
George was alone again, a spot of red in either of his cheeks. Those
vague stirrings of chivalry and aspiration were gone, and gone that
sense of well-earned ease. He got up, came out of his corner, and walked
to and fro on the tiger-skin before the fire. He lit a cigarette, threw
it away, and lit another.

Skating on thin ice! That would not stop him! Their gossip would not
stop him, nor their sneers; they would but send him on the faster!