[Under Two Flags by Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]]@TWC D-Link book
Under Two Flags

CHAPTER IV
6/13

I have ridden closer spins, though.

The fallows were light." Lord Royallieu smiled grimly.
"I know what the Shire 'plow' is like," he said, with a flash of his falcon eyes over the landscape, where, in the days of his youth, he had led the first flight so often; George Rex, and Waterford, and the Berkeleys, and the rest following the rally of his hunting-horn.

"You won much in bets ?" "Very fair, thanks." "And won't be a shilling richer for it this day next week!" retorted the Viscount, with a rasping, grating irony; he could not help darting savage thrusts at this man who looked at him with eyes so cruelly like Alan Bertie's.

"You play 5 pound points, and lay 500 pounds on the odd trick, I've heard, at your whist in the Clubs--pretty prices for a younger son!" "Never bet on the odd trick; spoils the game; makes you sacrifice play to the trick.

We always bet on the game," said Cecil, with gentle weariness; the sweetness of his temper was proof against his father's attacks upon his patience.
"No matter what you bet, sir; you live as if you were a Rothschild while you are a beggar!" "Wish I were a beggar: fellows always have no end in stock, they say; and your tailor can't worry you very much when all you have to think about is an artistic arrangement of tatters!" murmured Bertie, whose impenetrable serenity was never to be ruffled by his father's bitterness.
"You will soon have your wish, then," retorted the Viscount, with the unprovoked and reasonless passion which he vented on everyone, but on none so much as the son he hated.


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