Part 4 (1/2)

”Well,” she asked, ”and how has the great trial ended?”

”Adversely,” the Marquis confessed.

”You foolish person,” she sighed, lighting the cigarette and throwing the match away. ”Of course you were bound to lose, and I suppose it's cost you no end of money.”

”I believe,” he admitted, a little stiffly, ”that my lawyers are somewhat depressed at the amount.”

She smoked in silence for a moment.

”So he will go back to Mandeleys. It is a queer little fragment of life. What on earth does he want to do it for?”

”Obstinacy,” the Marquis declared,--”sheer, brutal, ignorant obstinacy.”

”And the boy?” she asked, pursuing her own train of thought. ”Have you heard anything of him?”

”Nothing. To tell you the truth, I have made no enquiries. Beyond the fact that it seems as though, for the present, Richard Vont will have his way, I take no interest in either of them.”

She nodded thoughtfully.

”If only we others,” she sighed, ”could infuse into our lives something of the marvellous persistence of these people whom in other respects we have left so far behind!”

”My dear Marcia,” he protested, ”surely, with your remarkable intelligence, you can see that such persistence is merely a form of narrow-mindedness. Your father has shut in his life and driven it along one narrow groove. To you every day brings its fresh sensation, its fresh object. Hence--coupled, of course, with your natural gifts--your success. The person who thinks of but one thing in life must be indeed a dull dog.”

”Very excellent reasoning,” she admitted. ”Still, to come back to this little tragedy--for it is a tragedy, isn't it?--have you any idea what he means to do when he gets to Mandeleys?”

”None at all!”

”Let me see,” she went on, ”it is nineteen years ago last September, isn't it?--nineteen years out of the middle of his life. Will he sit in the garden and brood, I wonder, or has he brought back with him some scheme of mediaeval revenge?”

”There was a time,” the Marquis reflected, ”when several of my Irish tenants used to shoot at me every Sat.u.r.day night from behind a hedge.

It was not in the least a dangerous operation, and I presume it brought them some relief. With Vont, however, things would be different. I remember him distinctly as a most wonderful shot.”

”Psychologically,” Marcia Hannaway observed, ”his present action is interesting. If he had shot you or me in his first fit of pa.s.sionate resentment, everything would have been in order, but to leave the country, nurse a sullen feeling of revenge for years, and then come back, seems curious. What shall you do when you see him sitting in his garden?”

”I shall address him,” the Marquis replied. ”I fear that his long residence in such a country as America will have altered him considerably, but it is of course possible that the instincts of his cla.s.s remain.”

”How feudal you are!” she laughed.

The Marquis frowned slightly. Although this was the one person in the world whom he felt was necessary to him, who held a distinct place in his very inaccessible heart, there were times when he entertained a dim suspicion that she was making fun of him. At such times he was very angry indeed.

”In any case,” he said, ”we will not waste our time in speculating upon this man's att.i.tude. I am still hoping that I may be able to devise means to render his occupancy of the cottage impossible.”

”I should like to hear about the boy.”

”If,” the Marquis promised, ”I find Vont's att.i.tude respectful, I will make enquiries.”

”When are you going to Mandeleys?” she asked.

”I am in no hurry to leave London,” he replied.