“Yes—­for certain.  I learned to do that before you were born; but when things are said up against those I value and respect, it’s different.  I’ve told three men they were liars, to-day, and I may have to tell thirty so, to-morrow.”

Raymond felt his heart go slower.

“What the deuce is the matter?”

“Just this:  they say you promised to marry a mill girl at Bridetown and—­the usual sort of thing—­and, knowing you, I told them it was a lie.”

The young man uttered a scornful ejaculation.

“Tell them to mind their own business,” he said.  “Good heavens—­what a storm in a teacup it is!  They couldn’t bleat louder if I’d committed a murder.”

“There’s more to it than to most of these stories,” explained Richard.  “You see it sounds a very disgraceful sort of thing, you being your brother’s right hand at the works.”

“I’m not that, anyway.”

“Well, you’re an Ironsyde, Mister Raymond, and to have a story of this sort told about an Ironsyde is meat and drink for the baser sort.  So I hope you’ll authorise me to contradict it.”

“Good God—­is there no peace, even here?” burst out Raymond.  “Can even a man I thought large-minded and broad-minded and all the rest of it, go on twaddling about this as if he was an old washer-woman?  Here—­get me my bill—­I’ve finished.  And if you’re going to begin preaching to people who come here for their food and drink, you’d better chuck a pub and start a chapel.”

Mr. Gurd was stricken dumb.  A thousand ghosts from the grave had not startled him so much as this rebuke.  Indeed, in a measure, he felt the rebuke deserved, and it was only because he held the rumour of Raymond’s achievements an evil lie, that he had cautioned the young man, and with the best motives, desired to put him on his guard.  But that the story should be true—­or based on truth—­as now appeared from Raymond’s anger, had never occurred to Richard.  Had he suspected such a thing, he must have deplored it, but he certainly would not have mentioned it.

He went out now without a word and held it the wisest policy not to see his angry customer again that night.  He sent Raymond’s account in by a maid, and the young man paid it and went out to keep his appointment with Miss Ironsyde.

But again his mood was changed.  Gurd had hit him very hard.  Indeed, no such severe blow had been struck as this unconscious thrust of Richard’s.  For it meant that an incident that Raymond was striving to reconcile with the ways of youth—­a sowing of wild oats not destined to damage future crops—­had appeared to the easy-going publican as a thing to be stoutly contradicted—­an act quite incompatible with Raymond’s record and credit.  Coming from Gurd this attitude signified a great deal; for if the keeper of a sporting inn took such a line about the situation, what sort of line were others likely to take?  Above all, what sort of line would his Aunt Jenny take?  His nebulous hopes dwindled.  He began to fear that she would find the honour of the family depended not on his freeing himself from Sabina, but the contrary.