TO say that Pembroke was angry with Cole is hardly putting it strong
enough. He ardently longed that he might once again inflict a thrashing
upon him like those Cole had been wont to receive in his school
days. He had taken the little clergyman to Malvern, and kept him a
day or two before sending him home to his mother. Cole’s remorse was
pitiful. He wanted to write to the whole House of Bishops, to make a
public reparation, to do a number of quixotic things which Pembroke’s
strong sense forbade peremptorily. When after two days of sincere, but
vociferous penitence, Mr. Cole was at last sent back to his rectory, he
went under strict instructions from Pembroke to keep his misfortune to
himself. But alas for poor Cole! What stung him most was that Madame
Koller should have seen him in that condition--for the two hard slaps
that she had given him had by no means cured his infatuation. On the
contrary, her strong nerves, her fierce temper, her very recklessness
of conventionality, irresistibly attracted his timid and conservative
nature. What had offended Pembroke, who looked for a certain feminine
restraint in all women, and gentleness, even in daring, had charmed
Cole. His anguish, when he found, that in addition to his paroxysm of
shame, he suffered tortures because he could no longer see Madame
Koller, almost frightened him into convulsions.
Pembroke had meant to be very prudent with Ahlberg, and particularly
to avoid anything like a dispute. He felt that the natural antagonism
between them would be likely to produce a quarrel unless he were
remarkably careful, and as he regarded Ahlberg with great contempt,
he had a firm determination never to give him either cause or chance
of offense. According to the tradition in which he had been raised, a
quarrel between two men was liable to but one outcome--an archaic one,
it is true, but one which made men extremely cautious and careful not
to offend. If a blow once passed it became a tragedy. Pembroke promised
himself prudence, knowing that he had not the coolest temper in the
world. But when, some days after the dinner, they met, this time in the
road also, and Ahlberg’s first remark was “What capital fun we had with
our friend Cole!” Pembroke’s temper instantly got the better of him.
“Mr. Ahlberg, do you think it quite a gentlemanly thing to invite a
man like Cole to accept your hospitality in a woman’s house, and then
deliberately to make him drunk?” asked he.
Ahlberg’s sallow skin grew a little paler.
“Is that your view?” he asked, coolly. “I understand something occurred
with Madame Koller, which you naturally resent.”
As Ahlberg’s face grew whiter, Pembroke’s grew redder. He felt that
first savage impulse to seize Ahlberg and shake him as a mastiff would
a terrier. He stood still for a moment or two and then stepping up
close to Ahlberg, said to him: “You are a scoundrel.”
Ahlberg grew perfectly rigid. This blunt, Anglo-Saxon way of picking a
quarrel amazed him. He brought his heels together, and stood up very
erect, in the first position of dancing, and said:
“This is most extraordinary. Does Monsieur know that but one result can
follow this?”
“Anything you please,” answered Pembroke, carelessly, “but if you force
me to fight I will certainly kill you. You know something of my pistol
practice.”
Ahlberg hesitated a moment, and then drawing up his sleeve, exposed a
great red knot on his right arm.
“If I desired to take advantage of you I might say that you knew my
pistol arm was disabled. I got this six months ago--and it will be six
months more before it is well. The paralysis is still partial. But as
soon as I can trust it, you will hear from me.”
“By all means,” answered Pembroke.
Then they touched their hats ceremoniously, and went their way,
Pembroke plunging through the brushwood on the side of the road with
his dog at his heels.
Pembroke never despised himself more than at that moment. Here was he
involved in a quarrel with a man for whom he felt a thorough contempt
in every respect, and against which he had particularly warned himself.
As to the method of settling the trouble proposed, that his own good
sense condemned, albeit it was still in vogue in Virginia. In the heat
of anger he had promised Ahlberg to kill him--while he, Pembroke,
knew in his heart, that certainly nothing Ahlberg could say or do,
would make him deliberately carry out any such intention. But the
folly, wickedness, petulance, want of self-command that brought the
quarrel about, enraged him more with himself than with Ahlberg. He
could imagine Cave’s cool and cutting disapproval--Colonel Berkeley’s
uproarious and vociferous protest. He knew his own folly in the case
so well, that he fancied everybody else must know it too. At all
events, the trouble was postponed, and he felt prepared to do a great
deal, even to the extent of apologizing to Ahlberg, rather than fight
him. And then Elise. What a creature she was to be sure--singing to
him to charm him, and declaiming poetry like the tragic muse--and
then that scene with Cole, at which the recollection even made him
shudder and laugh too. Why couldn’t he fall thoroughly in love with
Olivia Berkeley? Probably she would refuse him tartly, but at least
it would rid him of Madame Koller, and it would be a bracing, healthy
experience. He had half a mind to go back and suggest to Ahlberg that
they observe their usual terms toward each other until the time came
that Ahlberg might demand satisfaction. A strained demeanor would be
peculiarly unpleasant, considering the way the people at The Beeches
and the Berkeleys and Miles and himself were associated. But he
reflected that Ahlberg was a man of the world, and would probably let
things go on smoothly, anyhow. It turned out he was correct, as the
next time they met, Ahlberg’s manner was imperturbable, and the cold
politeness which had always existed between the two men was not visibly
changed.
Walking along, and cutting viciously with his stick at the harmless
bushes in the path on this particular day, he soon found himself near
the fence that ran around the lawn at Isleham. He concluded he would
go in and see the Berkeleys for half an hour. It would be a refreshing
change from Madame Koller and Ahlberg to Olivia’s pure, bright face and
the Colonel’s jovial, wholesome chaff. It was a mild, spring-like day
in early winter. The path led to the lawn through the old-fashioned
garden, where everything was brown and sere except the box hedge that
stiffly bordered the straight, broad path that led through the garden.
He remembered having heard Miles at breakfast say something about going
over to Isleham, and was therefore not surprised to see him walking
up and down the path with Olivia. She had a book in her hand and was
reading in her low, clear voice, aloud to him as they walked slowly,
and Miles was following what she read closely, occasionally stopping
to ask a question and looking quite cheerful and interested. It came
back to him that Miles had spoken of Olivia and himself taking up
Italian together. From her manner, and from the expression on her
charming face in its little black velvet hood, he saw she was doing it
for Miles’ sake. He loved that younger brother as well as one human
being ever loved another. To have saved the boy one pang he would have
done much--but he could do so little! Miles was no longer fit for field
sports, society he shunned, reading he could do for himself. Pembroke
felt every day the masculine inability to console. Yet here was this
girl who had found something to interest poor little Miles, and was
doing it with the sweetest womanliness in the world. She probably cared
nothing for Italian, but Miles was fond of it.
“Wait,” said Olivia, with authority, as he came up. “Don’t speak a
word. I must let you see how well I can read this,” and she read a
stanza correctly enough.
“That will do,” remarked Pembroke, who knew something of Italian, “you
were wise to choose that Francesca da Rimini story though. It is the
easiest part in the whole book.”
Olivia slammed the volume together indignantly, and drew down her
pretty brows in a frown.
“You and papa are always laughing at us. Never mind Miles, _I_ don’t
mind them I assure you.”
Pembroke went in and remained to luncheon, as did Miles. The Colonel
was in great spirits. He had had a brush on the road with Mrs. Peyton,
and had been over to The Beeches.
“And by the way, Pembroke, what’s this I hear about poor Cole getting
as tight as Bacchus the other night at The Beeches?”
“Nothing at all,” answered Pembroke. He did not mean to say anything
about Ahlberg’s share in it, considering the relations between them,
but the Colonel was too sharp for him.
“Now, Cole wouldn’t go and do a thing like that unless he was put up to
it. Didn’t our friend with the waxed mustache have something to do with
it, eh? Oh, yes, I see he did.”
Pembroke smiled at the way Colonel Berkeley read his face. Olivia spoke
up with spirit.
“Papa, I hate that Mr. Ahlberg. Pray don’t have him here any more.”
But the Colonel looked quite crestfallen at this. Ahlberg amused him,
and life was very, very dull for him.
“I hope you won’t insist on that, my dear,” he said, and Olivia
answered:
“I can’t when you look that way.”
Much relieved, the Colonel began again. “And Madame Koller, I hear--ha!
ha!”
“Papa!”
The note of dreadful warning in Olivia’s voice vexed Pembroke. But he
could not explain and she would not understand.
Afterward, the two brothers walking along briskly toward home, Miles
said:
“Do you know I believe Ahlberg is making love to Olivia on the sly!”
Pembroke felt an infinite disgust at this--Ahlberg with his waxed
mustache, and his napkin tucked in his waistcoat, and his salmis and
his truffles, making love to Olivia Berkeley!
“He doesn’t want Madame Koller to know it, though, I’ll warrant,”
continued Miles. “Anybody can see his game there.”
“If he asks Olivia to marry him there will be another ear-boxing
episode in this neighborhood,” said Pembroke with a short laugh.