“Then,” I said, “there would be a battle royal.”
“A battle royal, would there? Yes, no doubt.”
With the last words his interest seemed to fail suddenly. He slightly
drooped his head, and sat like one listening for some distant sound.
I watched him closely. Gernham’s declaration that if Vernon were
maltreating the spaniel he must be mentally diseased was present in my
mind. I was looking for symptoms that would guide me to a conclusion
one way or the other. I saw a great change in Vernon—a painful change.
He looked like a man suffering under some terrible distress, which had
altered, for the time, his whole outlook upon life. But I felt that I
was with a perfectly sane man. As I regarded him he seemed to recover
his consciousness of my presence, glanced up, and met my scrutiny.
“What is it?” he said. “Why do you look at me like that?”