Seventeen transforming years had passed since that face had last appeared to him, yet he was as certain of it as though he again stood, a wondering child, on the Richmond road, and saw the servant ride up, and heard the vicious thwack across the blinded eyes. And, as then, hate and indignation surged up in his heart, and cried it alien from one so arrogant and so malignant. Splendour and daring were this man’s, but gained at every sacrifice of truth and humanity. He had grown in these years somewhat bald and portly, but the cold furtive eye was unchanged, as were the impassive vindictiveness and the measuring cruelty which underlay his whole expression. And yet women could be found to sacrifice to such an idol, and to yield their all to the wicked hypocrisy which, to the masculine observer, simply flaunted itself on that countenance. Truly there must be a blind spot in their psychology, which Love, for the benefit of his own villain sex, had once set there with a kiss. Else how could they so often overlook the obvious.
He passed so close to Brion that the young man could have touched him. He shrank back rather, as from something noisome and unclean, and with such a repellant frown on his face as it was fortunate, perhaps, the great man failed to observe. But he was in close converse with the Queen, and was as inattentive to the rabble about him as though they had been sheep.
But the moment the little party was well gone by, Brion felt his arm gripped by Clerivault. He looked, and saw the paragon’s face a sickly yellow, while his eyes were alight with panic.
‘God’s ’slid!’ said he, in a hoarse whisper: ‘Why did you do that—look like that? Come away, ere some flying rumour chance to reach his ear!’
‘Let it,’ answered Brion fiercely. ‘I budge for no man’s humour.’
‘Budge, budge!’ cried the other, in a sweat of despair. ‘The rack will make you budge a foot’s length ere you know it. Wist you not his name? Come for my sake, if not your own.’
That argument prevailed, and the boy allowed himself to be led away.
‘Clerivault,’ he said presently, in a stiff strait voice, when they were come into a quiet place; ‘you asked me but now if I knew him. I knew and know him, Clerivault.’
He stopped, looking full into the other’s face, and said not another word. But there had been that of significance in his tone which was unmistakable. Clerivault dropped his eyes before that revelation of understanding.
‘Well,’ he muttered lamely: ‘if you know him, you know what is better avoided. Once a bad man is always a bad man—that is a legal dictum. You will gain most by remembering it, and forgetting all the rest.’