Greatheart - Ethel May Dell (the lemonade war series TXT) 📗

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.


CHAPTER XXIX
THE CAPTIVE

Isabel uttered no reproaches to her charge as, quivering with shame, she returned from her escapade. She exchanged no more than a low "Good night!" with Scott, and then turned back into the room with Dinah. But as the latter stood before her, crest-fallen and humiliated, expecting a reprimand, she only laid very gentle hands upon her and began to unfasten her dress.
"I wasn't spying upon you, dear child," she said. "I only looked in to see if you would care for a cup of milk last thing."
That broke Dinah utterly and overwhelmingly. In her contrition, she cast herself literally at Isabel's feet. "Oh, what a beast I am! What a beast!" she sobbed. "Will you ever forgive me? I shall never forgive myself!"
Isabel was very tender with her, checking her wild outburst with loving words. She asked no question as to what had been happening, for which forbearance Dinah's gratitude was great even though it served to intensify her remorse. With all a mother's loving care she soothed her, assuring her of complete forgiveness and understanding.
"I did wild things in my own girlhood," she said. "I know what it means, dear, when temptation comes."
And so at last she calmed her agitation, and helped her to bed, waiting upon her with the utmost gentleness, saying no word of blame or even of admonition.
Not till she had gone, did it dawn upon Dinah that this task had probably been left to Scott, and with the thought a great dread of the morrow came upon her. Though he had betrayed no hint of displeasure, she felt convinced that she had incurred it; and all her new-born shyness in his presence, returned upon her a thousandfold. She did not know how she would face him when the morning came.
He would not be angry she knew. He would not scold her like Colonel de Vigne. But yet she shrank from the thought of his disappointment in her as she had never before shrunk from the Colonel's rebuke. She was sure that she had forfeited his good opinion for ever, and many and bitter were the tears that she shed over her loss.
Her thoughts of Eustace were of too confused a nature to be put into coherent form. The moment they turned in his direction her brain became a flashing whirl in which doubts, fears, and terrible ectasies ran wild riot. She lay and trembled at the memory of his strength, exulting almost in the same moment that he had stooped with such mastery to possess her. His magnificence dazzled her, deprived her of all powers of rational judgment. She only realized that she--and she alone--had been singled out of the crowd for that fiery worship; and it seemed to her that she had been created for that one splendid purpose.
But always the memory of Scott shot her triumph through with a regret so poignant as to deprive it of all lasting rapture. She had hurt him, she had disappointed him; she did not know how she would ever look him in the eyes again.
Her sleep throughout that last night was broken and unrefreshing, and ever the haunting strains of _Simple Aveu_ pulsed through her brain like a low voice calling her perpetually, refusing to be stilled. Only one night more and she would be back in her home; this glittering, Alpine dream would be over, never to return. And again she turned on her pillow and wept. It was so hard, so hard, to go back.
In the morning she arose white-faced and weary, with dark shadows under her eyes, and a head that throbbed tormentingly. She breakfasted with Isabel in the latter's room, and was again deeply grateful to her friend for forbearing to comment upon her subdued manner. She could not make any pretence at cheerfulness that day, being in fact still so near to tears that she could scarcely keep from breaking down.
"Don't wait for me,