Sir Hugh stared at him. Then he burst into a shout of laughter. "You young fool!" he said.
Augustine's eyes were lightnings in a storm-swept sky.
"You young fool," Sir Hugh repeated, not laughing, a heavier stress weighting each repeated word.
"Can you deny," said Augustine, "that you have always led a dissolute life? If you do deny it it won't help you. I know it: and I've not needed the echoes to tell me. I've always felt it in you. I've always known you were evil."
"What if I don't deny it?" Sir Hugh inquired.
Augustine was silent, biting his quivering lips.
"What if I don't deny it?" Sir Hugh repeated. His assumption of good-humour was gone. He, too, was scowling now. "What have you to say then?"
"By heaven,—I say that you shall not come near my mother."
"And what if it was not because of my dissolute life she left me? What if you've built up a cock-and-bull romance that has no relation to reality in your empty young head? What then? Ask your mother if she left me because of my dissolute life," said Sir Hugh.
The book in Augustine's wrenching hands had come apart with a crack and crash. He looked down at it stupidly.