Sir William looked away. There was a slight frown on his face now, but not of annoyance. "I know it's rather difficult for you," he said. "But wouldn't it be better to face it? You must meet them sooner or later. And as far as they are concerned, it's all over. There'd be no real awkwardness. As a matter of fact I don't think that the Crowboroughs are coming themselves. It's the Branchleys—who are staying with them. If they do come, there'd be more or less of a crowd—with all the young people. You'd get over the first meeting, and then it would all be buried."
"I know I've got to meet them some time or other. I know that Crowborough did have cause for complaint against Hugo. But he went much too far, and I can never forget it, now the poor boy's dead."
"You couldn't have forgotten it if he hadn't taken back the worst of what he accused Hugo of. I admit that. But he did take it back, didn't he?"
"Well, did he? That's what I'm not so sure about. I've got to behave as if he did—I know that. If we were to have it out together again, there's likely to be such a row that we should be enemies for life. I don't want that, for the sake of Cynthia and the girls. I suppose he doesn't want it, either, or he wouldn't have tried to mend the row we did have."
"But, surely—"
"I know what you're going to say. He wrote and said he'd never intended to accuse Hugo of swindling young Horsham. It was the way I'd taken what he did say that made him lose his temper and go farther than he'd meant to. That's all very well. But he didn't withdraw the charge."
There was a look of perplexity on Sir William's face as he stood by his brother, preparing to leave him, but not to leave the discussion into which they had so lightly drifted with a ragged edge of uncertainty. "Poor Hugo!" he said. "He made trouble for you, Edmund—for all of us. It's all forgiven and ought to be forgotten. But where it remains alive it ought to be faced, oughtn't it? He did lead Jim Horsham into bad ways. You've admitted as much as that."
"Yes, I did admit it. It was bad enough. But to lay that a son of mine cheated a brother officer out of a large sum of money—! That was the accusation."
"Crowborough made it when he was worked up about what he had discovered, and he withdrew it."
It was Colonel Eldridge who ended the discussion, and allowed his brother to go free. "Well, that's what we began with," he said. "I'm ready to act on the supposition that he did withdraw it. But I don't feel inclined to meet him this afternoon, William. Thanks all the same."