_ PART I CHAPTER XXVIII. THE LESSON
Ten minutes later Scott descended the stairs alone and returned to the salon.
A dance was in progress. He stood for a space in the doorway, watching. Finally, having satisfied himself that his brother was not among the dancers, he turned away.
With his usual quietness of demeanour, he crossed the vestibule, and looked into the smoking-room. Sir Eustace was not there either, and he was closing the door again when the man himself came up the passage behind him, and clapped a careless hand on his shoulder.
"Are you looking for me, most doughty knight?" he asked.
Scott turned so sharply that the hand fell. "Yes, I am looking for you," he said, and his voice was unusually curt. "Come outside a minute, will you? I want to speak to you."
"I am not going outside," Sir Eustace said, with exasperating coolness. "If you want to talk, you can come in here and smoke with me."
"I must be alone with you," Scott said briefly. "There are two or three men in there."
His brother gave him a look of amused curiosity. "Do you want to do something violent then? There's plenty of room for a quiet talk in there without disturbing or being disturbed by anyone."
But Scott stood his ground. "I must see you alone for a minute," he said stubbornly. "You can come to my room, or I will come to yours,--whichever you like."
Sir Eustace shrugged his shoulders. "You are damned persistent. I don't know that I am specially anxious to hear what you have to say. In any case it can keep till the morning. I can't be bothered now."
Scott's hand grasped his arm. A queer gleam shone in his pale eyes. "Man," he said, "I think you had better hear me now."
Eustace looked down at him, half-sneering, half-impressed. "What a mule you are, Stumpy! Come along then if you must! But you had better mind how you go. I'm in no mood for trifling."
"Nor I," said Scott, with very unaccustomed bitterness.
He kept his hand upon his brother's arm as they turned. He leaned slightly upon him as they ascended the stairs. Eustace's room was the first they reached, and they turned into that.
Scott was very pale, but there was no lack of resolution about him as he closed the door and faced the elder man.
"Well, what is it?" Eustace demanded.
"Just this." Very steadily Scott made answer. "I want to know how far this matter has gone between you and Miss Bathurst. I want to know--what you are going to do."
"My intentions, eh?" Eustace's sneer became very pronounced as he put the question. He pulled forward a chair and sat down with an arrogant air as though to bring himself thus to Scott's level.
Scott's eyes gleamed again momentarily at the action, but he stood like a rock. "Yes, your intentions," he said briefly.
Sir Eustace's black brows went up, he looked him up and down. "Can you give me any reason at all why I should hold myself answerable to you?" he asked.
Scott's hands clenched as he stood. "I can," he said. "I regard Miss Bathurst as very peculiarly our charge--under our protection. We are both in a great measure responsible for her, though possibly--" he hesitated slightly--"my responsibility is greater than yours, in so far as I take it more seriously. I do not think that either of us is in a position to make love to her under existing circumstances. But that, I admit, is merely a matter of opinion. Most emphatically neither of us has the right to trifle with her. I want to know--and I must know--are you trifling with her, as you have trifled with Miss de Vigne for the past fortnight? Or are you in earnest? Which?"
He spoke sternly, as one delivering an ultimatum. His eyes, steel-bright and unwavering, were fixed upon his brother's face.
Sir Eustace made a sharp gesture, as of one who flings off some stinging insect. "It is not particularly good form on your part to bring another lady's name into the discussion," he said. "At least you have no responsibilities so far as Miss de Vigne is concerned."
"I admit that," Scott answered shortly. "Moreover, she is fully capable of taking care of herself. But Miss Bathurst is not. She is a mere child in many ways, but she takes things hard. If you are merely amusing yourself at her expense--" He stopped.
"Well?" Sir Eustace threw the question with sudden anger. His great, lounging figure stiffened. A blue flame shot up in his eyes.
Scott stood silent for a moment or two; then with a great effort he unclenched his hands and came forward. "I am not going to believe that of you unless you tell me it is so," he said.
Sir Eustace reached out an unexpected hand without rising, and took him by the shoulder. "You may be small of stature, Stumpy," he said, "but you're the biggest fool I know. You're making mountains out of molehills, and you'll get yourself into trouble if you're not careful."
Scott looked at him. "Do you imagine I'm afraid of you, I wonder?" he said, a faint tremor of irony in his quiet voice.
Sir Eustace's hold tightened. His mouth was hard. "I imagine that I could make things highly unpleasant for you if you provoked me too far," he said. "And let me warn you, you have gone quite far enough in a matter in which you have no concern whatever. I never have stood any interference from you and I never will. Let that be understood--once for all!"
He met Scott's look with eyes of smouldering wrath. There was more than warning in his hold; it conveyed menace.
Yet Scott, very pale, supremely dignified, made no motion to retreat. "You have not answered me yet," he said. "I must have an answer."
Sir Eustace's brows met in a thick and threatening line. "You will have very much more than you bargain for if you persist," he said.
"Meaning that I am to draw my own conclusions?" Scott asked, unmoved.
The smouldering fire suddenly blazed into flame. He pulled Scott to him with the movement of a giant, and bent him irresistibly downwards. "I will show you what I mean," he said.
Scott made a swift, instinctive effort to free himself, but the next instant he was passive. Only as the relentless hands forced him lower he spoke, his voice quick and breathless.
"You can hammer me to your heart's content, but you'll get nothing out of it. That sort of thing simply doesn't count--with me."
Sir Eustace held him in a vice-like grip. "Are you going to take it lying down then?" he questioned grimly.
"I'm not going to fight you certainly." Scott's voice had a faint quiver of humour in it, as though he jested at his own expense. "Not--that is--in a physical sense. If you choose to resort to brute force, that's your affair. And I fancy you'll be sorry afterwards. But it will make no actual difference to me." He broke off, breathing short and hard, like a man who struggles against odds yet with no thought of yielding.
Sir Eustace held him a few seconds as if irresolute, then abruptly let him go. "I believe you're right," he said. "You wouldn't care a damn. But you're a fool to bait me all the same. Now clear out, and leave me alone for the future!"
"I haven't done with you yet," Scott said. He straightened himself, and returned indomitably to the attack. "I asked you a question, and--so far--you haven't answered it. Are you ashamed to answer it?"
Sir Eustace got up with a movement of exasperation, but very oddly his anger had died down. "Oh, confound you, Stumpy! You're worse than a swarm of mosquitoes!" he said. "I dispute your right to ask that question. It is no affair of yours."
"I maintain that it is," Scott said quietly. "It matters to me--perhaps more than you realize--whether you behave honourably or otherwise."
"Honourably!" His brother caught him up sharply. "You're on dangerous ground, I warn you," he said. "I won't stand that from you or any man."
"I've no intention of insulting you," Scott answered. "But I must know the truth. Are you hoping to marry Miss Bathurst, or are you not?"
Sir Eustace drew himself up with a haughty gesture. "The time has not come to talk of that," he said.
"Not when you are deliberately making love to her?" Scott's voice remained quiet, but the glitter was in his eyes again--a quivering, ominous gleam.
"Oh, that! My dear fellow, you are disquieting yourself in vain. She knows as well as I do that that is a mere game." Eustace spoke scoffingly, looking over his brother's head, ignoring his attitude. "I assure you she is not so green as you imagine," he said. "It has been nothing but a game all through."
"Nothing but a game!" Scott repeated the words slowly as if incredulous. "Do you actually mean that?"
Sir Eustace laughed and took out his cigarettes. "What do you take me for, you old duffer? Think I should commit myself at this stage? An old hand like me! Not likely!"
Scott stood up before him, white to the lips. "I take you for an infernal blackguard, if you want to know!" he said, speaking with great distinctness. "You may call yourself a man of honour. I call you a scoundrel!"
"What?" Eustace put back his cigarette-case with a smile that was oddly like a snarl. "It looks to me as if you'll have to have that lesson after all," he said. "What's the matter with you now-a-days? Fallen in love yourself? Is that it?"
He took Scott by the shoulders, not roughly, but with power.
Scott's eyes met his like a sword in a master-hand. "The matter is," he said, "that this precious game of yours has got to end. If you are not man enough to end it--I will."
"Will you indeed?" Eustace shook him to and fro as he stood, but still without violence. "And how?"
"I shall tell her," Scott spoke without the smallest hesitation, "the exact truth. I shall tell her--and she will believe me--precisely what you are."
"Damn you!" said Sir Eustace.
With the words he shifted his grasp, took Scott by the collar, and swung him round.
"Then you may also tell her," he said, his voice low and furious, "that you have had the kicking that a little yapping cur like you deserves."
He kicked him with the words, kicked him thrice, and flung him brutally aside.
Scott went down, grabbing vainly at the bed to save himself. His face was deathly as he turned it, but he said nothing. He had said his say.
Sir Eustace was white also, white and terrible, with eyes of flame. He stood a moment, glaring down at him. Then, as though he could not trust himself, wheeled and strode to the door.
"And when you've done," he said, "you can come to me for another, you beastly little cad!"
He went, leaving the door wide behind him. His feet resounded along the passage and died away. The distant waltz-music came softly in. And Scott pulled himself painfully up and sat on the end of the bed, panting heavily.
Minutes passed ere he moved. Then at last very slowly he got up. He had recovered his breath. His mouth was firm, his eyes resolute and indomitable, his whole bearing composed, as with that dignity that Dinah had so often remarked in him he limped to the door and passed out, closing it quietly behind him.
The dance-music was still floating through the passages with a mocking allurement. The tramp of feet and laughter of many voices rose with it. A flicker of irony passed over his drawn face. He straightened his collar with absolute steadiness, and moved away in the direction of his own room. _