"You can taunt me if you like," cried d.i.c.k, goaded to fury, and the whole bitterness of a lifetime surging up in pa.s.sionate speech. "I have got past feeling it. Your life has been one continual taunt of me. You have thought me a dull, good-natured boor, delighted to have a word thrown at him now and again by the elegant gentleman, and rather honoured than otherwise to be ridden over roughshod, or kicked into the mud when it pleased the elegant gentleman to ride by. No, listen to me,"
he thundered, as Austin was about to protest. "By G.o.d, you shall listen this time. You"ve made me your b.u.t.t, your fool, your doer of trivial offices. I"ve wondered sometimes why you haven"t addressed me as "my good fellow," and asked me to touch my cap to you. I"ve borne it all these years without complaining--but do you know what it is to eat your heart out and remain silent? I have borne it for my mother"s sake--in spite of her dislike of me--and for your sake, because I loved you. Yes.
If ever one man has loved another I"ve loved you. But you took no heed.
What was my affection worth? I was only the stupid, dull boor ... but I suffered it all till you came between me and her. I had spent the whole pa.s.sion of my life upon her. She was the only thing left in the world for which I felt fiercely. I hungered for her, thirsted for her, my brain throbbed at the thought of her, the blood rushed through my veins at the sight of her. And you came between us. And if I have d.a.m.ned my soul, by G.o.d! the d.a.m.nation is your doing. Do you think, while I live, that I"ll give her up to you? I"ll get my soul"s worth, anyhow."
He smote his palm with his clenched fist and strode about the little room. Austin sat for a while dumb with astonishment and dismay. His cherished, lifelong conception of "dear old d.i.c.k" lay shattered. A new d.i.c.k appeared to him, a personality stronger, deeper than he could have imagined. A new respect for him, also a new pity that was generous and not contemptuous, crept into his heart.
"Listen, d.i.c.k," said he, using the familiar name for the first time. "Do I understand that you accuse me of sending you out to Vancouver and hastening your departure so as to gain my own ends with Viviette?"
"Yes," returned d.i.c.k. "I do. You have laid this trap for me."
"Have you ever heard me lie to you?"
"No," said d.i.c.k.
"Then I tell you, as man to man, that until this afternoon I had no suspicion that your feelings towards Viviette were deeper than those of an elder brother."
d.i.c.k laughed bitterly. "You couldn"t conceive a clod like me falling in love. Well?"
"That"s beside the question," said Austin. "I did not behave dishonourably towards you. I came down. I fell in love with Viviette.
How could I help it? How could I help loving her? How could I help telling her so? But she is young and innocent, and her heart is her own yet. Tell me--man to man--dare you say that you have won it or that I have won it?"
"What"s the good of talking?" said d.i.c.k, relapsing into his sullen mood.
"If I go she is yours. But I won"t go."
Austin rose again and laid his hand on his brother"s arm.
"d.i.c.k. If I give her up, will you obey my conditions?"
"You give her up voluntarily? Why should you?"
"A d.a.m.nable thing was done this afternoon," said Austin. "I see I had my share in it, and I as well as you have to make reparation. Man alive!
You are my brother," he cried with an outburst of feeling. "The nearest thing in the world to me. Do you think I could rest happy with the knowledge that a murderous devil is always in your heart, and that it"s in my power to--to exorcise it? Do you think the cost matters? Come.
Shall we make this bargain? Yes or no?"
"It"s easy for you to promise," said d.i.c.k. "But when I am gone, how can you resist?"
Austin hesitated for a moment, biting his lips. Then, with the air of a man who makes an irrevocable step in life, he crossed the room and rang the bell.
"Ask Mrs. Holroyd if she will have the kindness to come here for a minute," he said to the servant.
d.i.c.k regarded him wonderingly. "What has Mrs. Holroyd to do with our affairs?"
"You"ll see," said Austin, and there was silence between them till Katherine came.
She looked from one joyless face to the other, and sat without a word on the chair that Austin placed for her. Her woman"s intuition divined a sequel to the afternoon"s drama. Some of it she had already learned.
For, going earlier into Viviette"s room, she had found her white and shaken, still disordered in hair and dress as d.i.c.k had left her; and Viviette had sobbed on her bosom and told her with some incoherence that the monkey had at last hit the lyddite sh.e.l.l in the wrong place, and that it was all over with the monkey. So, before Austin spoke, she half divined why he had summoned her.
Her heart throbbed painfully.
"d.i.c.k and I," said Austin, "have been talking of serious matters, and we need your help."
She smiled wanly. "I"ll do whatever I can, Austin."
"You said this afternoon you would do anything I asked you. Do you remember?"
"Yes, I said so--and I meant it."
"You said it in reply to my question whether you would accept me if I asked you to marry me."
d.i.c.k started from the sullen stupor into which he had fallen and listened with perplexed interest.
"You are not quite right in your tenses, Austin," she remarked. "You said: Would I have accepted you if you had asked me?"
"I want to change the tense into the present," he replied.
She met his glance calmly. "You ask me to marry you in spite of what you told me this afternoon?"
"In spite of it and because of it," he said, drawing up a chair near to her. "A great crisis has arisen in our lives that must make you forget other words I spoke this afternoon. Those other words and everything connected with them I blot out of my memory forever. I want you to do me an infinite service. If there had been no deep affection between us I should not dare to ask you. I want you to be my wife, to take me into your keeping, to trust me as an upright man to devote my life to your happiness. I swear I"ll never give you a moment"s cause for regret."
She plucked for a while at her gown. It was a strange wooing. But in her sweet way she had given him her woman"s aftermath of love. It was a gentle, mellow gift, far removed from the summer blaze of pa.s.sion, and it had suffered little harm from the sadness of the day. She saw that he was in great stress. She knew him to be a loyal gentleman.
"Is this the result of that scene in the armoury?" she asked quietly.
"Yes," said Austin.
"I was right then. It was a matter of life and death."
"It was," said he. "So is this."
She looked again from one face to the other, rose, hesitated for a moment--and then held out her hand. "I am willing to trust you, Austin," she said.
He touched her hand with his lips and said gravely: "I will not fail your trust."
As soon as she had gone he went to the chair where d.i.c.k sat in gloomy remorse and laid a hand on his shoulder.
"Well?" said he.
"I agree," d.i.c.k groaned, without looking up. "I have no alternative. I appreciate your generosity."
Then Austin spoke of the appointment in Vancouver. He explained how the idea had occurred to him; how Viviette had come late the night before to tell him of what he had never before suspected--d.i.c.k"s desire to go abroad; how they had conspired to give him a birthday surprise; how they had driven over to Witherby to send the telegram to Lord Overton. And as he spoke, d.i.c.k looked at him with a new ghastliness on his face.
"This afternoon--in the dining-room--when you said that Viviette had told you everything--?"
"About your wish to go to the Colonies. What else?"
"And what I overheard in the armoury--about a telegram--telling me--putting me out of my misery?"
"Only whether we should tell you to-night or to-morrow about the appointment. d.i.c.k--d.i.c.k," said Austin, deeply moved by the great fellow"s collapse, "if I have wronged you all these years, it was through want of insight, not want of affection. If I have taunted you, as you say, it was merely a lifelong habit of jesting which you never seemed to resent. I was unconscious of hurting you. For my blindness and carelessness I beg your forgiveness. With regard to Viviette--I ought to have seen, but I didn"t. I don"t say you had no cause for jealousy--but as G.o.d hears me--all the little conspiracy to-day was lovingly meant--all to give you pleasure. I swear it."