CHAPTER XVII — I SEE TO THE BOTTOM OF THINGS
He sought me out just before luncheon. I was in the courtyard, listening patiently to Jasper Jr.'s theories and suggestions concerning the restoration of the entire facade of the castle, and what he'd do if he were in my place. Strange to say, I was considerably entertained; he was not at all offensive; on the contrary, he offered his ideas in a pleasantly ingenuous way, always supplementing them with some such salve as: "Don't you think so, Mr. Smart?" or "I'm sure you have thought of it yourself," or "Isn't that your idea, too?" or "You've done wonders with the joint, old man."
Colingraft came directly up to where we were standing. There was trouble in his eye.
"See here, Mr. Smart," he began austerely. "I've got something to say to you, and I'm not the sort to put it off. I appreciate what you've done for Aline and all that sort of thing, but your manner to-day has been intolerable, and we've got to come to an understanding."
I eyed him closely. "I suppose you're about to suggest that one or the other of us must—evacuate—get out, so to speak," said I.
"Don't talk rubbish. You've got my mother bawling her eyes out upstairs, and wishing she were dead. You've got to come off this high horse of yours. You've got to apologise to her, and damned quick, at that. Understand?"
"Nothing will give me greater joy than to offer her my most abject apology, Mr. Titus, unless it would be her unqualified forgiveness."
"You'll have to withdraw everything you said."
"I'll withdraw everything except my ultimatum in respect to her putting a foot outside these walls. That still stands."
"I beg to differ with you."
"You may beg till you're black in the face," said I coolly.
He swallowed hard. His face twitched, and his hands were clenched.
"You are pretty much of a mucker, Mr. Smart," he said, between his teeth. "I'm sorry my sister has fallen into your hands. The worst of it is, she seems satisfied with everything you do. Good Lord! What she can see in you is beyond my comprehension. Protection! Why you couldn't protect her from the assault of a chicken."
"Are you trying to insult me, Mr. Titus?"
"You couldn't resent it if I were. There never was an author with enough moral backbone to—"
"Wait! You are her brother. I don't want to have trouble with you. But if you keep on in this strain, Mr. Titus, I shall be compelled to thresh you soundly."
He fairly gasped. "Th—thresh me!" he choked out. Then he advanced.
Much to his surprise—and, strangely enough, not to my own—I failed to retreat. Instead, I extended my left fist with considerable abruptness and precision and he landed on his back.
I experienced a sensation of unholy joy. Up to that moment I had wondered whether I could do it with my left hand.
I looked at Jasper, Jr. He was staring at me in utter bewilderment.
"Good Lord! You—you've knocked him down!"
"I didn't think I could do it," said I hazily.
He sprang to his brother's side, and assisted him to a sitting posture.
"Right to the jaw," shouted Jasper, with a strange enthusiasm.
"Left," I corrected him.
Colingraft gazed about him in a stupid, vacant fashion for a moment, and then allowed his glazed eyes to rest upon me. He sat rather limply, I thought.
"Are you hurt, Colly?" cried Jasper, Jr.
A sickly grin, more of surprise than shame, stole over Colingraft's face. He put his hand to his jaw; then to the back of his head.
"By Jove!" he murmured. "I—I didn't think he had it in him. Let me get up!"
Jasper, Jr. was discreet. "Better let well enough alone, old—"
"I intend to," said Colingraft, as he struggled to his feet.
For a moment he faced me, uncertainly.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Titus," said I calmly.
"You—you are a wonder!" fell from his lips. "I'm not a coward, Mr. Smart. I've boxed a good deal in my time, but—by Jove, I never had a jolt like that."
He turned abruptly and left us. We followed him slowly toward the steps. At the bottom he stopped and faced me again.
"You're a better man than I thought," he said. "If you'll bury the hatchet, so will I. I take back what I said to you, not because I'm afraid of you, but because I respect you. What say? Will you shake hands?"
The surly, arrogant expression was gone from his face. In its place was a puzzled, somewhat inquiring look.
"No hard feeling on my part," I cried gladly. We shook hands. Jasper, Jr. slapped me on the back. "It's a most distressing, atavistic habit I'm getting into, knocking people down without rhyme or reason."
"I daresay you had reason," muttered Colingraft. "I got what was coming to me." An eager light crept into his handsome eyes. "By Jove, we can get in some corking work with the gloves while I'm here. I box quite a bit at home, and I miss it travelling about like this. What say to a half-hour or so every day? I have the gloves in one of my trunks. I'm getting horribly seedy. I need stirring up."
"Charmed, I'm sure," I said, assuming an enthusiasm I did not feel. Put on the gloves with this strapping, skillful boxer? Not I! I was firmly resolved to stop while my record was good. In a scientific clash with the gloves he would soon find out what a miserable duffer I was.
"And Jappy, here, is no slouch. He's as shifty as the dickens."
"The shiftier the better," said I, with great aplomb. Jasper, Jr., stuck out his chest modestly, and said: "Oh, piffle, Colly." But just the same I hadn't the least doubt in my mind that Jasper could "put it all over me." It was a rather sickening admission, though strictly private.
We made our way to my study, where I mildly suggested that we refrain from mentioning our little encounter to Mrs. Titus or the Countess. I thought Colingraft was especially pleased with the idea. We swore secrecy.
"I've always been regarded as a peaceful, harmless grub," I explained, still somewhat bewildered by the feat I had performed, and considerably shaken by the fear that I was degenerating into a positive ruffian. "You will believe me, I hope, when I declare that I was merely acting in self-defence when I—"
He actually laughed. "Don't apologise." He could not resist the impulse to blurt out once more: "By Jove, I didn't think you could do it."
"With my left hand, too," I said wonderingly. Catching myself up, I hastily changed the subject.
A little later on, as Colingraft left the room, slyly feeling of his jaw, Jasper, Jr. whispered to me excitedly: "You've got him eating out of your hand, old top."
Things were coming to a pretty pass, said I to myself when I was all alone. It certainly is a pretty pass when one knocks down the ex-husband and the brother of the woman he loves, and quite without the least suspicion of an inherited pugnacity.
I had a little note from the Countess that afternoon, ceremoniously delivered by Helene Marie Louise Antoinette. It read as follows:
"You did Colingraft a very good turn when you laid him low this morning. He is tiresomely interested in his prowess as a box-maker, or a boxster, or whatever it is in athletic parlance. He has been like a lamb all afternoon and he really can't get over the way you whacked him. (Is whack the word?) At first he was as mum as could be about it, but I think he really felt relieved when I told him I had seen the whole affair from a window in my hall. You see it gave him a chance to explain how you got in the whack, and I have been obliged to listen to intermittent lectures on the manly art of self-defence all afternoon, first from him, then from Jappy. I have a headache, and no means of defence. He admits that he deserved it, but I am not surprised. Colly is a sporting chap. He hasn't a mean drop of blood in his body. You have made a friend of him. So please don't feel that I hold a grudge against you for what you did. The funny part of it all is that mamma quite agrees with him. She says he deserved it! Mamma is wonderful, really, when it comes to a pinch. She has given up all thought of 'putting a foot outside the castle.' Can you have luncheon with us to-morrow? Would it be too much trouble if we were to have it in the loggia? I am just mad to get out-of-doors if only for an hour or two in that walled-in spot. Mr. Poopendyke has been perfectly lovely. He came up this morning to tell me that you haven't sneezed at all and there isn't the remotest chance now that you will have a cold. It seems he was afraid you might. You must have a very rugged constitution. Britton told Blake that most men would have died from exposure if they had been put in your place. How good you are to me.