So they went downstairs without a word, and along a stone passage to a big room which had been given over to them as boys, because it was right away from the other rooms, and in which they knew no one would disturb them.
Neither of them spoke at once, but both took cigarettes from a box on a table, and Humphrey offered Dick a match, which he refused, lighting one for himself.
"Lady George Dubec," said Dick—"Virginia Dubec, if you like to call her so—I've no objection—is a friend of mine, as you know. She wanted a quiet place to hunt from for a month or two, and I said I would try to find her a house here. Of course I told her that they would make friends with her from here. I went to see her this afternoon, and I come back to find you have been talking scandal about her, and giving the governor the impression that she's an impossible sort of creature for respectable people to know. Upon my word, Humphrey, you ought to be kicked."
Humphrey grew a shade paler, but he asked quietly, "What scandal do you accuse me of spreading about her?"
"Well, it isn't scandal in the sense that it's untrue; but I don't suppose a dozen people know that she was ever on the stage. It was only for a few months, and the circumstances of it did her credit. But if it gets about, it will do her harm. As far as the governor goes, of course, it puts him up on his hind legs at once, and here am I in the position of getting this quite charming lady, against whom nobody can say a word, down here, and my own people refusing to go near her. It's too bad. If you happened to know that about her, which, of course, is just the sort of thing you would find out and remember and talk about, out of all the other things you might say about a woman like that, you ought to have kept it to yourself. And you would have done if you had had a spark of decent feeling."
"I should have kept it to myself if I had had any idea it was through you she came here."
"You ought to have kept it to yourself in any case. You know her, you know what she is, and the first thing you find to blurt out about her when you hear she has come down here is the very thing that you know will put everybody against her!"
"Look here, Dick, there's no sense in you going on blackguarding me like this. I hadn't a ghost of a notion she was anywhere near here when I told them what I did. The moment I came into the room the governor said, 'We've been talking about Lady George Dubec. Do you know her?' I said, 'Yes, she's a very charming lady.' That was the very first thing I said. Then I said, 'She was an actress once upon a time.' There's nothing in that. You say very few people know it. You're quite wrong. Lots of people know it. Why, even Mrs. Graham knew it, and had seen her. Nobody thinks anything the worse of her for it. Why should they? And anyhow it wasn't until afterwards that they told me that she had come down here. Then I said, 'Dick knows her better than I do; he'll tell you all you want to know.' Really, old chap, you're a bit unreasonable."
Both of them had been standing so far, but now Humphrey, feeling perhaps that the crisis had been disposed of, threw himself into a chair.
So it was, on the surface. Dick stood for a time looking down on the floor. If it was as Humphrey had said, and he had not known that Virginia Dubec was in the neighbourhood until after he had let out that fact about her, it was impossible to carry the attack further. But Dick was no more satisfied with him than before. The hostility he had felt remained, and was destined to grow. From that moment the common ground of easy, tolerant brotherhood upon which they had both stood for so long was left behind. Dick had begun to criticise, to find cause for dislike; Humphrey had received an affront, and he did not easily forgive an affront.