I never believed in him."
He was of the species that never believes in anything except vice and the
_Sporting Times_.
Julian rejoined:
"I don't understand you."
"Cresswell," said the man.
Julian began to wonder what was coming, and silently got ready for the
defence, as he always did instinctively when Valentine was the subject of
attack.
"What have you got to say about Cresswell?" he asked curtly.
"My dear chap, now don't you get your frills out. Nothing that I should
mind being said about me, I assure you. Only Cresswell will soon lose his
nickname if he goes on as he's going now."
"I'm in the dark."
"That's what he likes being, if what they say is true. Quite a
night-bird, I'm told."
"You'd better be more explicit."
But the man glanced at Julian's face and seemed to think better of it. He
moved off muttering:
"Damned rot, minding a little chaff. And when we're all in the same boat
too."
Julian sat pondering over his veiled remarks. They surprised him, but at
first he was inclined to consider them as meaningless and unfounded as so
much of the gossip of the clubs. Men like Valentine must always be a
target for the arrows of the cynical. Julian had heard his sanctity
laughed at in billiard-rooms and in bars many times, and had simply felt
an easy contempt for the laughers, who could not understand that any
nature could be finer than their own.
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