Something was pressing on my shoulder, thrusting me slowly into
consciousness. Half awake, I wrenched myself free, snatching for my sword
as I did so. It was a chill and cloudy morning, and Brutus was standing
by my bed, holding a bowl of chocolate between a thumb and forefinger,
that made the piece of china look as delicately fragile as a flower.
"Eleven o'clock," he said. "You sleep late."
I looked at him blankly, still trying to shake off the drowsiness that
crowded upon me. It seemed only a few minutes back that he had lighted
me to that room. He must have detected a shade of suspicion in the look
I gave him.
"Too much wine," said Brutus quickly.
But when he spoke, I knew it was not wine that made me sleep the whole
night through. He thrust the bowl he was holding nearer to me.
"And now you poison me," I remarked, but he shook his head in
emphatic negation.
"Hah!" he grunted, and emitted a curious chuckle that caused me to give
him my full attention.
"You find the morning amusing, Brutus?" I asked.
He gulped and nodded in assent.
"Last night you kill me. Now I give you chocolate. He! He!"
I glanced at him over the edge of the chocolate bowl. It was the first
time I had heard anyone laugh at so truly a Christian doctrine.
"Monsieur sends compliments," he said.
"Brutus," came my father's voice across the hall, "tell him I will see
him as soon as he has finished dressing."
He was sitting before his fire, wrapped in a dressing gown of Chinese
silk, embroidered with flowers. By the tongs and shovel lay a pair of
riding boots, still so wet and mud-spattered that he must have pulled
them off within the hour. A decanter of rum was near him on a stand. On
his knee was a volume of Rabelais, which was affording him decorous
amusement.
Brutus was busy gathering up the gray satin small clothes of the previous
day, which had been tossed in a careless heap on the floor, and I
perceived that they also bore the marks of travel. Careful mentors, who
had taken a lively pleasure in their teaching, had been at pains to tell
me that he was a man of irregular habits. Yet with indulgent politeness
he remained blandly reticent. For him the day seemed to have started
afresh, independent and unrelated to other days. It had awakened in him a
genial spirit, far brighter than the morning. He greeted me with a gay
wave of the hand and a nod of invitation towards the rum. My refusal
served only to increase his courteous good nature.
"A very good morning to you, my son," he said. "So you have slept. Gad,
how I envy you! It is hard to be a man of affairs and still rest with any
regularity."
He waved me to a chair in a slow, sweeping gesture, timed and directed so
that it ended at the rum decanter.
"You will pardon my addressing you through Brutus," he continued
confidentially, "but it is a habit of mine which I find it hard to break.
I am eccentric, my son. I never speak to anyone of a morning till I have
finished my cup of chocolate. I have seen too many quarrels flare up over
an empty stomach."
He stretched a foot nearer the blaze, and smiled comfortably at the
hissing back log.
"And it would be a pity to have a falling out on such a morning as this,
a very great pity, to be sure."
The very thought of it seemed to give him pause for pleased, though
thoughtful contemplation, for he sipped his rum in silence until the
tumbler was half empty.
"Once in Bordeaux," he volunteered at last, "there was a man whom I fear
I provoked quite needlessly--all because I was walking in the garden with
a headache, and my chocolate was late--Lay out the other shirt, Brutus, I
must be well dressed today. What was it I was saying?"
"That you were walking in the garden with a headache," I reminded him.
"Surely you had something better to walk with near at hand?"
He shrugged his shoulders, drained his glass, and wiped his fingers
carefully on a cambric handkerchief.
"Either that or my conscience," he replied, "and oddly enough, I
preferred the headache. He might have been alive today if I had had my
chocolate. Poor man!" he sighed.
"You wanted to see me?" I asked, "or simply to impress me?"
He raised a hand in shocked denial.
"Pray do not believe I am so vulgar," he replied. "Yes, I wished to see
you, Henry, for two reasons. First, I was absentminded last evening. I
find I do not know the name of the gentleman with whom you had the
falling out. If you tell me--who knows--the world is small."
He waited expectantly, and I smiled at him. I had hoped he would ask me.
"You really care to know his name?"
"It might be useful," he confessed. "As I said--who knows? Perhaps we may
have something in common--some little mutual interest."
"I am sure you have," I told him. "The man I fought with was Mr.
Lawton--at my uncle's country house."
For a fraction of a second I thought he was astonished. I thought that
the look he gave was almost one of respect, but it was hard to tell.
"And you wounded him?" he asked quickly.
"I hardly think Mr. Lawton expected it," I acknowledged.
"I fear," he mused, "that the years are telling on Mr. Lawton--and your
Uncle Jason knew of this unpleasantness?"
"Not until afterwards."
"Of course he was shocked?"