PISTOLS FOR TWO
John Hammond, although a bachelor, lived in a very good house, in the
same neighborhood as Lord Severn’s, and, strange as it may appear to
the author of _The Christian_, he possessed more than one teaspoon.
When he had hospital nurses of doubtful character to tea, which was
extremely seldom, he did not even wait on them himself; he kept
servants for that very purpose. Possibly those extraordinary facts may
be accounted for by his not being a wicked lord, nor even a misguided
baronet.
John Hammond was seated at home on the morning after the concert,
considering his position. Immediately after the scene in the
picture-gallery overnight he had come away, feeling as if his world
had crumbled into ruin around him. He had saved the woman he loved from
the marchioness’s scorn; he could not save her from his own. And the
other woman, whom he had considered his friend, to whom he had offered
himself in all good-will, believing that she had affection to give him,
if not love--he had discovered that her heart was engaged, and that she
regarded marriage with him as a hateful necessity.
He had sent her a note, brief, courteous, and dignified. In it he had
not used one word that might seem to accuse her; he had taken the
entire blame upon himself. He had stated simply that he found he could
not offer her the love of a husband, and he had placed himself in her
hands. Now he was waiting for her answer.
But though he was waiting to hear from Lady Victoria, he was thinking
of Belle Yorke. There are two kinds of misfortune which sometimes come
upon a man at the same time; and one makes a public arrival, and
it harasses him a great deal, but the other comes in silence and in
secrecy, and it wrecks his life.
There was a knock at the door, and a footman announced Captain
Mauleverer.
For the first time in the history of their friendship the two men faced
each other with mutual embarrassment. The captain, like a sensible man,
went straight at his fence.
“Look here, Hammond, I am awfully sorry I made such an ass of myself
last night. I’m afraid I have given you a wrong impression about
Victoria.”
“No. Why should you say that?” Hammond replied in a tone of
indifference.
Mauleverer looked at him anxiously.
“I’m afraid I have led you to think there was something between us,
that she--well, in fact, that she cared about me.”
Hammond gave a weary shrug.
“What of it? What does it matter?”
“It’s very decent of you to take it so well,” said the puzzled captain.
“I was afraid that I might have unwittingly injured her in your mind.”
“No, oh no; don’t think that. There was no hypocrisy about Lady
Victoria, I can assure you. She didn’t pretend to be in love with me,
and I didn’t pretend to be in love with her.”
“You asked her to marry you,” observed the other, in a tone of
remonstrance.
“I know; I did it to please my constituents, as she was aware. A public
man has to do that sort of thing.”
“Surely you expected her to care for you in time?”
“No; I merely expected her to canvass for me.”
Mauleverer began to feel baffled by this cynical indifference.
“You seem to take a very curious tone,” he said, after a moment. “Of
course, you understand that, whatever feeling I may have had for her
in the past, I shall never think of her again except as a cousin.”
In spite of his own inward trouble, Hammond could not resist a smile at
the honest captain’s efforts to plead against himself. He gave him an
amused glance as he retorted:
“I am afraid that is rather ambiguous. I have known cousins who were
very much attached to each other.”
“Hammond, do you doubt me when I tell you that from this moment
Victoria will be perfectly indifferent to me?”
“Well, you piled it on pretty strongly last night, you know. I can’t
help thinking that you are rather more fond of her than you pretend.
But there is no need to get excited about it; it makes no difference to
me.”
Mauleverer gazed at him in dismay.
“Is that the way in which you speak about your future wife?”
“No,” said Hammond, shaking his head decidedly.
“Hammond, what does this mean? You say that my attachment to Victoria
makes no difference to you, and yet you no longer wish to marry her?”
“It means that I have made a mistake, and that I have to get out of it
the best way I can.”
“Old man, this is my doing. This is because of what I said to you last
night.”
“No.” Hammond became earnest for the first time. “I am very glad you
said what you did, because if I had had the vanity to think that Lady
Victoria cared twopence about me, you would have undeceived me. But the
reason why I have determined not to marry her is not merely because
I believe she loves you, but because I have discovered that I love
another woman too well ever to marry any one besides.”
“Great heavens! Is that it?” Mauleverer exclaimed. He recalled the
scene of last night, and began dimly to understand it.
Hammond proceeded to enlighten him.
“Did you think that I was jealous of you? Why, man, if I had loved
your cousin with one-hundredth part of the love I have for that other,
I should have taken you by the throat last night when you said what you
did. Jealous of you? No, but of that man whose years protect him from
my anger, though they have not protected youth and innocence from him.
It is Lord Severn, not you, who has robbed me of the woman I love; and
let me tell you that if I had no other reason for breaking the hollow,
lying pledge I gave last night, I would sooner cut off this hand than
give it to the daughter of the man who is guilty of Belle Yorke’s
betrayal!”
“My God!”
Mauleverer sat transfixed as the whole truth of the situation burst
upon him. Twice he opened his lips to speak, and twice he recollected
that the secret had been intrusted to his honor. He was on the point of
springing to his feet to go, when the door opened and the footman came
in.
“A Mr. Yorke, sir, wishes to see you. He is in the hall,” announced
the stately creature with icy impassibility.
“Mr. Yorke?” repeated Hammond, bewildered.
“He is a rather young man, sir.” The information was vouchsafed with a
crushing absence of emotion. “I should judge him to be about thirteen.”
Hammond started and changed color. Then he said with quiet emphasis:
“Show the young gentleman in.”
If ever footman permitted himself to show human feelings, assuredly a
faint gleam of something resembling surprise played across the visage
of that footman as he withdrew.
“Who is it?” asked Mauleverer, amused.
“Belle Yorke’s brother.”
The footman threw open the door. With perfect self-control, with a
beautiful unconsciousness of whether he was announcing a member of the
royal family or a detective with a warrant for his master’s arrest, he
uttered the words:
“Mr. Yorke.”
The captain saw a rather undersized boy in knickerbockers, with his
fists tightly clenched and a flush of excitement on his cheeks, who
walked boldly into the centre of the room, and there stood still.
Hammond, who had already risen, went towards the boy with extended
hand. Mr. Yorke drew back, and kept his own hands down by his side.
“I’d rather not shake hands with you, please, Mr. Hammond.”
The man started, and dropped his hand with a strange look.
“Will you sit down?” he asked, quietly.
“I’d rather not, please.”
Hammond bowed, and remained standing himself.
“I’ve come to see you about my sister. Miss Belle Yorke. She hasn’t any
father, you know, so I’m her protector.”
“Yes, my boy, I’m sure you are,” said Hammond, very gently.
Mr. Yorke went on, with a certain feverish energy:
“It’s rather difficult for me to speak to you, because I don’t know
exactly what you’ve done to Belle; but I know it’s your doing, whatever
it is, because you used to be her sweetheart, and now she says she
shall never see you any more. You’ve broken her heart, and she wouldn’t
eat any breakfast this morning, and mother says she will give up the
stage; and I believe she’s been crying, though she won’t own to it. And
I don’t think you’re a gentleman, Mr. Hammond.”
Hammond’s head was drooping on his breast.
“God knows that!” he muttered.
“So I have come here to tell you that I consider you’ve no right to
treat Belle like that, and I’m not going to stand it. And as soon as
I’m old enough, I’m going to challenge you to a duel.”
“My child!”
The exclamation burst from the man unawares. Mr. Yorke turned very red.
“I think it’s very offensive of you to call me that,” he said,
wrathfully, “and it isn’t treating me as you ought to.”
“I beg your pardon,” said the man, humbly.
“And if you think,” Mr. Yorke went on fiercely, “that you can take
advantage of my being young to refuse me satisfaction, I shall think
you’re not very honorable, because you knew Belle had only me to
protect her when you broke her heart. And I’ve come here to ask you,
as a gentleman, to wait till I am twenty-one, so that I can fight you.
It’s only eight years and two months, and I expect you to give me your
word of honor that you will wait till then.”
“I will wait.”
“Thank you, sir.” Mr. Yorke became more friendly. “It’s only fair
for me to tell you that I’m going to save up and buy a revolver and
practise every day, so you had better do the same. I don’t want to
take any advantage of you.”
“You’re a brave fellow,” said Hammond.
“Then I think that’s all. Good-morning, Mr. Hammond.”
“Good-morning, Mr. Yorke.”
Hammond rang the bell, and advanced to open the door of the room. Mr.
Yorke was half-way out when he paused in the doorway.
“I say, Mr. Hammond,” he said, his manner suddenly changing to thorough
boyishness, “do you mind promising me, as a great favor, that you
won’t tell mother or Belle about this, or they mightn’t let me buy the
revolver?”
Hammond bowed kindly.
“I promise.”
The footman appeared outside.
“Show Mr. Yorke out.”
Mr. Yorke, regaining his dignity, made his exit in state, leaving the
two men looking at each other.
“By Jove! that was a little trump!” Mauleverer burst out as the door
closed. “Not much the matter with the modern child, after all.”
Hammond nodded as he cast himself wearily into a chair.
“Do you mind going now, old man?” he said, bluntly.
Mauleverer sprang up with a sudden recollection, hurried out on to the
pavement, hailed the nearest cab, and dashed off to Berkeley Square.