"She was very kind to me," replied Val, more sure than ever now that the proposal to come would be matrimonial.
"Good! You've heard, I expect, from Cadwallader Hunter, or some other general purveyor of gossip, that she and I aren't on the best of terms—that we don't get along like a pair of turtle doves?"
"I believe I did hear some hint of that sort, which went in at one ear and out at the other."
"You needn't consider my feelings. My wife and I hate each other like poison. She'd have thrown me over long ago, if she didn't want my money—all my money; not what she might get in alimony if we said 'Goodbye; the parting words are spoken.' Eh? Well, that's just what I do want to say to her. We've never had any open break, but the time's come. That's why I sent her to Europe, and sent for her to come back. I played my fish, and now I want to land it. A queer fish, Mrs. Milton is, too, bye the bye. I'm going to bring a case against her, and I want to use you for a trump card in it. You understand?"
A hot wave of rage swept over Loveland. He did understand, and never in his life had he been so angry. He had not known it was in him to be so angry at a thing which did not affect his own selfish interests; but he was not thinking of himself at all. A new or, at least, unknown self stirred faintly in the depths where all his life it had lain asleep, because, perhaps, it had never been called upon to wake. He was not angry because such a proposal had been made to him—Lord Loveland; he had not thought of that part yet. Disgust with the man who could make such a proposition was the one emotion which shook him.
"You beast!" he broke out, in his young, clear voice.
The other man looked up at the flushed, angry face in genuine surprise.
"Oh, I suppose I haven't offered 'your lordship' enough," he sneered, with a sarcastic emphasis on the title. "Well, I'll raise you——"
But something unexpected happened before the offer could be completed. Furious, Loveland slapped him across the mouth, and in dodging the insult, Milton slipped on a morsel of thin ice which glazed the pavement. He staggered, tried to regain his balance, lost it finally, and fell flat upon his back.
Loveland felt suddenly as if he had been drenched with cold water. The man's fall, the stillness of the limp form which lay grotesquely, like a dummy made of rags, was a sight to chill even righteous anger. Loveland hadn't yet begun to think of himself or the danger he might be in. He thought of the man—who seemed to him hardly a man—and wondered if he were dead. Then, after a dazed instant, he bent down over the motionless form, and felt a great throb of relief when he saw no stain of oozing blood on the pavement. The fur lined collar of Milton's coat had been pulled up behind his ears and had broken the force of the fall for the back of his head on which, otherwise, he must have struck with terrible force. Already his thick eyelids were twitching. In another moment or two he would open them. And realising this, Val at last turned to that thought which generally came first: Lord Loveland and Lord Loveland's welfare.