He sat down in a low chair, with his legs stretched out in front of him. This attitude was owing to the tightness of his buckskins at the knee, but it appeared to the Vicar as a deliberate and insulting expression of contempt.
"How dare you behave like that to me, sir?" he cried. "Are you aware that I am a minister of religion?"
"You don't behave much like one," returned Bertie. "I think you've gone off your head. Anyhow, I'm not going to carry on a brawl with you in somebody else's house. I shall be quite ready to come and have it out with you whenever you like when I leave here—in your vestry, if you like."
"Your manners and speech are detestable, sir," said the Vicar. "You're not fit to come into the house of ladies like these, and if you don't leave it at once—I shall—I shall——"
"You'll what?" asked Bertie. "Put me out? I don't think you could. What I should suggest is that you clear out yourself. You're not in a fit state to be in a lady's drawing-room."
His own anger was rising every moment, but in spite of some deficiencies in brain power he had fairly sound control over the brains he did possess, and they told him that, with two angry men confronted, the one who shows his anger least has an unspeakable advantage over the other.
He was not proof, however, against the next speech hurled at him.
"You are compromising Miss Walter by coming here. If you don't leave off persecuting that young lady with your odious and unwelcome attentions, I shall tell her so plainly, and leave it to her to choose between you and me."
Bertie sprang up. "That's too much," he said, his hands clenched and his eyes blazing. "How dare you talk about my compromising her? And choose between me and you! What the devil do you mean by that?"
The Vicar would have found it hard to explain a speech goaded by his furious annoyance, and what lay behind it. But he was spared the trouble. Mollie came into the room, to see the two men facing one another as if they would be at fisticuffs the next moment. She and Mrs. Mercer coming downstairs had heard the raised voices, and Mrs. Mercer, frightened, had incontinently fled. She had heard such tones from her lord and master before, and knew that she, unfortunately, could do nothing to calm them. Mollie hardly noticed her flustered apology for flight, but without a moment's hesitation went into the room and shut the door behind her.