“Don’t you?” He laughed and flung away a stone he had been idly playing with. “Well, I meant Modred, or—or any one else.”
“Who else?”
“Dad, say—or Dr. Crackenthorpe.”
“Oh, you’re an idiot!” I cried; “I won’t talk to you”—and I left him and ran indoors.
But he had driven the sting home and the poison already worked furiously in me. How can I explain why? It was true, what he had said, every word of it. She had set me against him, Jason—not in words, but by a tacit conviction of him as one who had of his own act bared his soul momentarily, and revealed a sinister brand across it hitherto unguessed at.
Well, this was the first waking from the boyish dream, and should I ever dream it again? I had said we were all in a manner her brothers, and that she was free to smile on whom she chose. What a pitiful handful of dust for all eyes but my own! I felt the passion of longing for her single love surge in me as I spoke. I had never till that moment dreamed of combating another for possession of it. She had seemed mine by right of fortune’s gift from the first, nor had she by her behavior appeared to question the right. We had confidences, discussions, little secrets together, which none but we might share in. We walked and talked and leaned toward one another, with a sense of mutual understanding that was pathetic, I am sure—at least as to my share in it—in God’s eyes.
And now to find that all the time she was on like secret terms with Modred—with Jason, too, perhaps, judging by his sidelong innuendoes, though it made my heart sick to think that she could play so double faced a game between me and one whom she professed to hate and despise.
What a drama of dolls it was! And how soon the drama was to turn into a tragedy!
I went indoors and upstairs to the room which Jason and I shared and flung myself on the bed. Then I was properly shocked and horrified to find that my cheeks were suddenly wet with tears—a humiliating discovery for a tough-sinewed young barbarian to make. What an admirable sight, indeed! Renalt Trender, sniffing and snuffling for a girl’s favor!
Pride, however, is everywhere indigenous, and this came to my assistance. If the minx played sham with me I would meet her with her own tactics and affect indifference. What a triumphant picture this: