These wrathful reflections were due to the fact that he had just met with a reminder—one of many—that he had at any rate made one bad bargain, for Wyvern was engaged to his daughter; and now it was a question only of months perhaps, when Wyvern should be sold up.
Then and there he made up his mind again that the engagement should be broken off, and yet while so making it up—we said “again”—the same misgiving that had haunted him on former occasions did so duly and once more, that the said breaking off would be a matter of no little difficulty even were it ever achieved at all. Wyvern might be a bad fanner, a hopeless one in fact, but he would be a hard nut to crack in a matter of this kind, and Lalanté—well, here was a hard and fast alliance for the offensive and defensive, which would require a breaking power such as he could not but realise to himself he scarcely possessed.
On rode Vincent Sage, mile after mile, still frowning. The good bargain he had made at yesterday’s ale had well-nigh faded from his thoughts now, and as he drew near to his home his private worries seemed to oust his professional satisfaction over his own acuteness and the steady but sure accumulation of the goods of this world. He had liked Wyvern well enough during the earlier period of their acquaintance—in fact more than well enough; but he had all the invariably successful man’s impatience of—even contempt for—the chronically unsuccessful; and in this particular instance his oft repeated dictum to himself—and sometimes to others—was “Wyvern will never do any good for himself or for anybody else either.”
Suddenly he pulled up his horse with a jerk, and emitted a whistle. He was scanning the road, scanning it intently.
“Oh-ho! So that’s how the cat jumps!” he exclaimed to himself, grimly.
He had reached the point where the track to Wyvern’s farm joined the wider road leading to his own. The frown became more of a set one than ever.
“One horse spoor coming this way alone,” he pronounced, “and I know what horse made that spoor. Two horse spoors going back—and the same horse made one of these spoors. That’s the game, is it, directly my back is turned? Well, it’s a game that must be stopped, and, damn it—it shall be.”
In spite of which vehemence, however, that same little cold water misgiving returned to render Vincent Le Sage’s mind uncomfortable.
He rode on, slowly now, keeping his horse at a walk; he was near home and there was no occasion for hurry. But as he went, he read that road like the pages of a book. He would find Wyvern at his place? Not a bit of it. For he had marked the returning spoors of the other horse.
Then again he reined in, suddenly and shortly, for the horse-hoofs had ceased and with them mingled the print of boots—and the said boots spelt one of each sex. From that point the spoor of one horse continued alone. The other was a returning one. This, then, was where they had parted.