"She likes the place, though she has a natural disdain for its condition.That is practical American.Things which are going to pieces because money is not spent upon them--mere money, of which all the people who count for anything have so much--are inevitably rather disdained.They are `out of it.' But she likes the estate." As he watched Mount Dunstan he felt sure he had got it at last--the right thing."If you were a duke with fifty thousand a year," with a distinctly nasty, amicably humorous, faint laugh, "she would--by the Lord, I believe, she would take it over--and you with it."Mount Dunstan got up.In his rough walking tweeds he looked over-big--and heavy--and perilous.For two seconds Nigel Anstruthers would not have been surprised if he had without warning slapped his face, or knocked him over, or whirled him out of his chair and kicked him.He would not have liked it, but--for two seconds--it would have been no surprise.In fact, he instinctively braced his not too firm muscles.But nothing of the sort occurred.During the two seconds--perhaps three--Mount Dunstan stood still and looked down at him.The brief space at an end, he walked over to the hearth and stood with his back to the big fireplace.
"You don't like her," he said, and his manner was that of a man dealing with a matter of fact."Why do you talk about her?"He had got away again--quite away.
An ugly flush shot over Anstruthers' face.There was one more thing to say--whether it was idiotic to say it or not.
Things can always be denied afterwards, should denial appear necessary--and for the moment his special devil possessed him.
"I do not like her!" And his mouth twisted."Do I not?
I am not an old woman.I am a man--like others.I chance to like her--too much."There was a short silence.Mount Dunstan broke it.
"Then," he remarked, "you had better emigrate to some country with a climate which suits you.I should say that England--for the present--does not.""I shall stay where I am," answered Anstruthers, with a slight hoarseness of voice, which made it necessary for him to clear his throat."I shall stay where she is.I will have that satisfaction, at least.She does not mind.I am only a racketty, middle-aged brother-in-law, and she can take care of herself.As I told you, she has the spirit of the huntress.""Look here," said Mount Dunstan, quite without haste, and with an iron civility."I am going to take the liberty of suggesting something.If this thing is true, it would be as well not to talk about it.""As well for me--or for her?" and there was a serene significance in the query.
Mount Dunstan thought a few seconds.
"I confess," he said slowly, and he planted his fine blow between the eyes well and with directness."I confess that it would not have occurred to me to ask you to do anything or refrain from doing it for her sake.""Thank you.Perhaps you are right.One learns that one must protect one's self.I shall not talk--neither will you.Iknow that.I was a fool to let it out.The storm is over.
I must ride home." He rose from his seat and stood smiling.
"It would smash up things nicely if the new beauty's appearance in the great world were preceded by chatter of the unseemly affection of some adorer of ill repute.Unfairly enough it is always the woman who is hurt.""Unless," said Mount Dunstan civilly, "there should arise the poor, primeval brute, in his neolithic wrath, to seize on the man to blame, and break every bone and sinew in his damned body.""The newspapers would enjoy that more than she would,"answered Sir Nigel."She does not like the newspapers.
They are too ready to disparage the multi-millionaire, and cackle about members of his family."The unhidden hatred which still professed to hide itself in the depths of their pupils, as they regarded each other, had its birth in a passion as elemental as the quakings of the earth, or the rage of two lions in a desert, lashing their flanks in the blazing sun.It was well that at this moment they should part ways.
Sir Nigel's horse being brought, he went on the way which was his.
"It was a mistake to say what I did," he said before going.
"I ought to have held my tongue.But I am under the same roof with her.At any rate, that is a privilege no other man shares with me."He rode off smartly, his horse's hoofs splashing in the rain pools left in the avenue after the storm.He was not so sure after all that he had made a mistake, and for the moment he was not in the mood to care whether he had made one or not.
His agreeable smile showed itself as he thought of the obstinate, proud brute he had left behind, sitting alone among his shut doors and closed corridors.They had not shaken hands either at meeting or parting.Queer thing it was--the kind of enmity a man could feel for another when he was upset by a woman.It was amusing enough that it should be she who was upsetting him after all these years--impudent little Betty, with the ferocious manner.
