"If I were Osgood, I would go gunning for Grahame," he retorted. "A rounder like Duncan never hovers about a bird so long for nothing."
"He had far better give up dogs and horses and bestow a little attention on his wife," Rennsler Van Vort replied. He had the persuasive sympathy, possessed by few men, which told him that a woman's heart, though easily won by flattery may be as easily lost by neglect. The lack of fortune had brought him into contact with the petty meanness of life and if he had made friends whose hospitality helped out his meagre purse, he knew that without his postprandial accomplishments and unquestioned ancestry few boards would have a place for him. He did not imagine that a moral truism would deeply affect his companions, but his broad instincts prompted him to add that "when a married woman goes astray it is usually the fault of her mother or her husband."
"Nonsense, old chap," retorted Howard-Jones. "Mrs. Osgood is a pretty woman, and a pretty woman must have admiration. Duncan used to admire her, but Osgood had the money and she married him. Duncan Grahame keeps right on admiring her and Osgood doesn't, so there you are."
The argument thus incited might have been continued were it not for the interruption caused by the familiar voice of a man, who had just entered, hailing the group at the window with the somewhat pithy expression: "What are you sportsmen doing there? Staring at nothing, I'll wager, and I don't believe you have had one drink between you for a week."
The men at the window turned, and were startled to see standing in the door the man of whom they were speaking, Duncan Grahame. His clothes showed that he had just come from the city. His trousers were turned up and muddy, and his hat was sprinkled with rain. The merry familiarity of his expression told, however, that he had not heard the remark just made, but Howard-Jones, a trifle abashed at finding one of the objects of his insinuations appear so inopportunely, and feeling that something had better be said to remove the embarrassment, took it upon himself to reply. "I don't believe we have, but you are just in time to stir us up. Rennsler has been preaching and we are awfully dry; just punch that bell, won't you."