"I'm not," said Louis, with that careful air of false blank casualness which he would invariably employ for his more breath-taking announcements. "I always carry a loaded revolver."
The fearful word "loaded" sank into the heart of the old woman, and thrilled her. It was a fact that for some weeks past Louis had been carrying a revolver. At intervals the craze for firearms seizes the fashionable youth of a provincial town, like the craze for marbles at school, and then dies away. In the present instance it had been originated by the misadventure of a dandy with an out-of-work artisan on the fringe of Hanbridge. Nothing could be more correct than for a man of spirit and fashion thus to arm himself in order to cow the lower orders and so cope with the threatened social revolution.
"You don't, Louis!" Mrs. Maldon deprecated.
"I'll show you," said Louis, feeling in his hip pocket.
"Please!" protested Mrs. Maldon, and Rachel covered her face with her hands and drew back from Louis' sinister gesture. "Please don't show it to us!" Mrs. Maiden's tone was one of imploring entreaty. For an instant she was just like a sentimentalist who resents and is afraid of hearing the truth. She obscurely thought that if she resolutely refused to see the revolver it would somehow cease to exist. With a loaded revolver in the house the situation seemed more dangerous and more complicated than ever. There was something absolutely terrifying in the conjuncture of a loaded revolver and a secret hoard of bank-notes.
"All right! All right!" Louis relented.
Julian cut across the scene with a gruff and final—
"I must clear out of this!"
He rose.
"Must you?" said his aunt.