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.