"I'm sure it's what he's always at, poor dear," retorted Dick, sharply; and as by this time they had reached the lunch-room, their argument came to an end.
CHAPTER V.
SENTIMENT AND "BACCY."
"Esther," said Mr. Tremain a few hours later, as they sat together in the library, just before the time for the tea-tray and the return of the other visitors, who, at Dick Darling's suggestion and under her guidance, had gone en masse to deal out tobacco and small sums of money to the old salts at Snug Harbour, "Esther, did you know Patricia was to be here, when you asked me to come?"
His voice was more stern than reproachful, and Mrs. Newbold, glancing up at him furtively, thought how cold and impassive was his face. She paused a moment before answering him, and the flames from the pine-logs on the wide hearth, leaping high, revealed a half-anxious, half-hesitating expression in her blue eyes and about her delicately-cut mouth. She held a screen of scarlet Ibis feathers, as she sat in a low chair, to shield her from the heat, and her hand trembled just enough to set the scarlet feathers moving, like so many vivid fire-tongues. She answered somewhat evasively:
"And if I did, Philip, what then? Is the old wound so deep it cannot be healed, and do you, a Hercules among men, shrink from the light touch of a woman's fingers?"
"We are but courageous," he made answer, "according to time and opportunity, and the weakness or strength of the temptation. A woman's hand has been the cause of a man's undoing ever since the world began, Esther. I have no desire to become another sacrifice on the altar of a woman's vanity."
"What do you fear, Philip?" she asked, presently, turning the feather fan round and round in her fingers, and watching him intently as she spoke.
"What do I fear? Everything and nothing. You, who know the whole miserable old story, must also know the bitterness of its ending. What do I fear? I fear Patricia; I fear the light coming and going in her eyes; I fear the grace and beauty of her motions; I fear the subtle witchery of her voice; I fear the sweetness of her smile, the studied trick of her down-drooped mouth, the soft lingering pressure of her hand; I fear—but there, why fight against shadows? I have the remedy in my own hands—I can leave you, Esther. Even you cannot compel me to see her."