CHAPTER XVII
THE LION IN THE PATH
A large and merry party of guests were congregated in the great hall atPerrythorpe Court, having tea. One of them--a young soldier-cousin of theStudleys--was singing a sentimental ditty at a piano to which no one waslistening; and the hubbub was considerable.
Dinah, admitted into the outer hall that was curtained off from the gaycrowd, shrank nearer to Scott as the cheery tumult reached her.
"Need we--must we--go in that way?" she whispered.
There was a door on the right of the porch. Scott turned towards it.
"I suppose we can go in there?" he said to the man who had admitted them.
"The gun-room, sir? Yes, if you wish, sir. Shall I bring tea?"
"No," Scott said quietly. "Find Sir Eustace Studley if you can, and askhim to join us there! Come along, Dinah!"
His hand touched her arm. She entered the little room as one seekingrefuge. It led into a conservatory, and thence to the garden. Theapartment itself was given up entirely to weapons or instruments ofsport. Guns, fishing-rods, hunting-stocks, golf-clubs, tennis-rackets,were stored in various racks and stands. A smell of stale cigar-smokepervaded it. Colonel de Vigne was wont to retire hither at night inpreference to the less cosy and intimate smoking-room.
But there was no one here now, and Scott laid hat and riding-whip uponthe table and drew forward a chair for his companion.
She looked at him and tried to thank him, but she was voiceless. Her palelips moved without sound.
Scott's eyes were very kindly. "Don't be so frightened, child!" he said;and then, a sudden thought striking him, "Look here! You go and wait inthe conservatory and let me speak to him first! Yes, that will be thebest way. Come!"
His hand touched her again. She turned as one compelled. But as he openedthe glass door, she found her voice.
"Oh, I ought not to--to let you face him alone. I must be brave. I must."
"Yes, you must," Scott answered. "But I will see him alone first. It willmake it easier for everyone."
Yet for a moment she halted still. "You really mean it? You wish it?"
"Yes, I wish it," he said. "Wait in here till I call you!"
She took him at his word. There was no other course. He closed the doorupon her and turned back alone.
He sat down in the chair that he had placed for her and became motionlessas a figure carved in bronze. His pale face and trim, colourless beardwere in shadow, his eyes were lowered. There was scarcely an inanimateobject in the room as insignificant and unimposing as he, and yet in hisstillness, in his utter unobtrusiveness, there lay a strength such as thestrongest knight who ever rode in armour might have envied.
There came a careless step without, a hand upon the door. It opened, andSir Eustace, handsome, self-assured, slightly haughty, strode into theroom.
"Hullo, Stumpy! What do you want? I can't stop. I am booked to playbilliards with Miss de Vigne. A test match to demonstrate the steadinessof my nerves!"
Scott stood up. "I have a bigger test for you than that, old chap," hesaid. "Shut the door if you don't mind!"
Sir Eustace sent him a swift, edged glance. "I can't stop," he saidagain. "What is it? Some mare's nest about Isabel?"
"No, nothing whatever to do with Isabel. Shut the door, man! I must bealone with you for a few minutes." Scott spoke with unwonted vehemence.The careless notes of the piano, the merry tumult of chattering voices,seemed to affect him oddly, almost to exasperate him.
Sir Eustace turned and swung the door shut; then with less than hiscustomary arrogance he came to Scott. "What's the matter?" he said. "Outwith it! Don't break the news if you can help it!"
His eyes belied the banter of his words. They shone as the eyes of afighter meeting odds. There was something leonine about him at themoment, something of the primitive animal roused from its lair andscenting danger.
He looked into Scott's pale face with the dawning of a threateningexpression upon his own.
And Scott met the threat full and square and unflinching. "I've come totell you," he said, "about the hardest thing one man can tell another.Dinah wishes to be released from her engagement."
His words were brief but very distinct. He stiffened as he uttered them,almost as if he expected a blow.
But Sir Eustace stood silent and still, with only the growing menace inhis eyes to show that he had heard.
Several seconds dragged away ere he made either sound or movement. Then,with a sudden, fierce gesture, he gripped Scott by the shoulder. "And youhave the damnable impertinence to come and tell me!" he said.
There was violence barely restrained in voice and action. He held Scottas if he would fling him against the wall.
But Scott remained absolutely passive, enduring the savage grip with nosign of resentment. Only into his steady eyes there came that gleam as ofsteel that leaps to steel.
"I have told you," he said, "because I have no choice. She wishes to beset free, and--she fears you too much to tell you so herself."
Sir Eustace broke in upon him with a furious laugh that was in somefashion more insulting than a blow on the mouth. "And she has deputed youto do so on her behalf! Highly suitable! Or did you volunteer for thejob, most fearless knight?"
"I offered to help her--certainly." Scott's voice was as free fromagitation as his pose. "I would help any woman under such circumstances.It's no easy thing for her to break off her engagement at this stage. Andshe is such a child. She needs help."
"She shall have it," said Eustace grimly. "But--since you are here--Iwill deal with you first. Do you think I am going to endure anyinterference in this matter from you? Think it over calmly. Do you?"
His hold upon Scott had become an open threat. His eyes were a red blazeof anger. In that moment the animal in him was predominant, overwhelming.He was furious with the fury of the wounded beast that is beyond allcontrol.
Scott realized the fact, and grasped his own self-control with a firmerhand. "It's no good my telling you that I hate my job," he said. "You'llhardly believe me if I do. But I've got to stick to it, beastly as it is.I can't stand by and see her married against her will. For that is whatit amounts to. She would give anything she has to be free. She told meso. I'm infernally sorry. Perhaps you won't believe that either. But I'vegot to see this thing through now."
"Have you?" said Eustace, and suddenly his words came clipped and harshfrom between set teeth. "And you think I'm going to endure it--standaside tamely--while you turn an attack of stage-fright into a just causeand impediment to prevent my marriage! I should have thought you wouldhave known me better by this time. But if you don't, you shall learn. Nowlisten! I am in dead earnest. If you don't drop this foolery, give meyour word of honour here and now to leave this matter in my handsalone,--I'll thrash you to a pulp!"
He spoke with terrible intention. His whole being pulsated behind thewords. And Scott's slight frame stiffened to rigidity in answer.
"You may grind me to powder!" he flung back, and in his voice theresounded a curiously vibrant quality as of finely-tempered steel that willbend but never break. "But you can't--and you shan't--force that childinto marrying you against her will! That I swear--by God in Heaven!"
There was amazing force in the utterance, he also had thrown off theshackles. But his strength had about it nothing of the brute. Stripped tothe soul, he stood up a man.
And against his will Eustace recognized the fact, realized the Invinciblemanifest in the clay, and in spite of himself was influenced thereby. Thesavage in him drew back abashed, aware of mastery.
Abruptly he released him and turned away. "You're a fool to tempt me," hesaid. "And a still greater fool to take her seriously. As I tell you,it's nothing but stage-fright. She had a touch of it yesterday. I'll comeround presently and make it all right."
"You can only make it right by setting her free," Scott made answer."There is no other course. Do you suppose I should have come to you inthis way if there had been?"
Sir Eustace
was moving to the door by which he had entered. He flung abackward look that was intensely evil over his shoulder at the punyfigure of the man behind him.
"I can imagine you playing any damned trick under the sun to serve yourown interests," he said, his lip curling in in an intolerable sneer. "Butthe deepest strategy fails occasionally. You haven't been quite subtleenough this time."
He was at the door as he uttered the last biting sentence, but so alsowas Scott. With a movement of incredible swiftness and impetuosity heflung himself forward. Their hands met upon the handle, and his remainedin possession, for in sheer astonishment Eustace drew back.
They faced one another in the evening light, Scott pale to the lips, inhis eyes an electric blaze that made them almost unbearably bright,Eustace, heavy-browed, lowering, the red glare of savagery gleaming likea smouldering flame, ready to leap forth in devastating fury to meet thefierce white heat that confronted him.
An awful silence hung between them--a silence of unutterable emotions,more poignant with passion than any strife or clash of weapons. Andthrough it like a mocking under-current there ran the distant tinkle ofthe piano, the echoes of careless laughter beyond the closed door.
Then at last--it seemed with difficulty--Scott spoke, his voice very low,oddly jerky. "What do you mean by that? Tell me what you mean!"
Sir Eustace made an abrupt gesture,--the gesture of the swordsman onguard. He met the attack instantly and unwaveringly, but his look waswary. He did not seek to throw the lesser man from his path. As it wereinstinctively, though possibly for the first time in his life, he treatedhim as an equal.
"You know what I mean!" he made fierce rejoinder. "Even you can hardlypretend ignorance on that point."
"Even I!" Scott uttered a short, hard laugh that seemed to escape himagainst his will. "All the same, I will have an explanation," he said."I prefer a straight charge, notwithstanding my damned subtlety. You willeither explain or withdraw."
"As you like," Sir Eustace yielded the point, and again he actedinstinctively, not realizing that he had no choice. "I mean that from thevery beginning of things you have been influencing her against me, tryingto win her from me. You never intended me to propose to her in the firstplace. You never imagined that I would do such a thing. You only thoughtof driving me off the ground and clearing it for yourself. I saw yourgame long ago. When you lost one trick, you tried for another. I knew--Iknew all along. But the game is up now, and you've lost." A very bittersmile curved his mouth with the words. "There is your explanation," hesaid. "I hope you are satisfied."
"But I am not satisfied!" Quick as lightning came the _riposte_. Scottstood upright against the closed door. His eyes, unflickering, dazzlinglybright, were fixed upon his brother's face. "I am not satisfied," herepeated, and his words were as sternly direct as his look; he spoke asone compelled by some inner, driving force, "because what you have justsaid to me--this foul thing you believe of me--is utterly and absolutelywithout foundation. I have never tried--or dreamed of trying--to win herfrom you. I speak as before God. In this matter I have never been otherthan loyal either to you or to my own honour. If any other man insultedme in this fashion," his face worked a little, but he controlled itsharply, "I wouldn't have stooped to answer him. But you--I suppose Imust allow you the--privilege of brotherhood. And so I ask you tobelieve--at least to make an effort to believe--that you have made amistake."
His voice was absolutely quiet as he ended. The dignity of his utterancehad in it even a touch of the sublime, and the elder man was aware of it,felt the force of it, was humbled by it. He stood a moment or two as oneirresolute, halting at a difficult choice. Then, with an abrupt lift ofthe head as though his pride made fierce resistance, he gave ground.
"If I have wronged you, I apologize," he said with brevity.
Scott smiled faintly, wryly. "If--" he said.
"Very well, I withdraw the 'if.'" Sir Eustace spoke impatiently, not asone desiring reconciliation. "You laid yourself open to it by acceptingthe position of ambassador. I don't know how you could seriously imaginethat I would treat with you in that capacity. If Dinah has anything tosay to me, she must say it herself."
"She will do so," Scott spoke with steady assurance. "But before you seeher, I think I ought to tell you that her reason for wishing to be setfree is not stage-fright or any childish nonsense of that kind; butsimply the plain fact that her heart is not in the compact. She has foundout that she doesn't love you enough."
"She told you so?" demanded Sir Eustace.
Scott bent his head, for the first time averting his eyes from hisbrother's face. "Yes."
"And she wished you to tell me?" There was a metallic ring in SirEustace's voice; the red glare was gone from his eyes, they were cold andhard as a winter sky.
"Yes," Scott said again, still not looking at him.
"And why?" The words fell brief and imperious, compelling in theirincisiveness.
Scott's eyes returned to his, almost in protest. "I told her you ought toknow," he said.
"Then she would not have told me otherwise?"
"Possibly not."
There fell another silence. Sir Eustace looked hard and straight into thepale eyes, as though he would pierce to the soul behind. But though Scottmet the look unwavering, his soul was beyond all scrutiny. There wassomething about him that baffled all search, something colossal thatbarred the way. For the second time Sir Eustace realized himself to be ata disadvantage; haughtily he passed the matter by.
"In that case there is nothing further to be said. You have fulfilledyour somewhat rash undertaking, and that you have come out of thebusiness with a whole skin is a bigger piece of luck than you deserved.If Dinah wishes this matter to go any further, she must come to meherself."
"Otherwise you will take no action?" Scott's voice had its old somewhatweary intonation. The animation seemed to have died out of him.
"Exactly." Sir Eustace answered him with equal deliberation. "So far asyou are concerned the incident is now closed."
Scott took his hand from the door and moved slowly away. "I have put thewhole case before you," he said. "I think you clearly understand that ifyou are going to try and use force, I am bound--as a friend--to take herpart against you. She relies upon me for that, and--I shall notdisappoint her. You see," a hint of compassion sounded in his voice, "shehas always been afraid of you; and she knows that I am not."
Sir Eustace smiled cynically. "Oh, you have always been ready to rushin!" he said. "Doubtless your weakness is your strength."
Scott met the gibe with tightened lips. He made no attempt to reply toit. "The only thing left," he said quietly, "is for you to see her andhear what she has to say. She is waiting in the conservatory."
"She is waiting?" Eustace wheeled swiftly.
Scott was already half-way across the room. He strode forward, andintercepted him.
"You can go," he said curtly. "You have done your part. This business ismine, not yours."
Scott stood still. "I have promised to see her through," he said. "I mustkeep my promise."
Sir Eustace looked for a single instant as if he would strike him down;and then abruptly, inexplicably he gave way.
"Very well," he said. "Fetch her in!"