"Well, by St. George and the Dragon, that gets me—a man weighing two hundred if he weighs an ounce, and well put together, too, even if he may be not exactly fit—a man like that standing up and letting another fellow bang away at him without ever so much as sticking up his hands— Damn such carrion in a man's shape, I say! I consider that you've been cheated, Blythe. I know that you'd a thousand times rather he had taken at least one healthy swing at you!"
"I feel as if I had hit a woman," replied Blythe, a lump of loathing in his throat.
One of the younger men went to the head of the stairs and called to Gaskins to come up. Gaskins viewed the prone man imperturbably enough, then dashed a glass of water in his face. Presently Jesse's eyelids fluttered and after a moment he sat up, rubbing his chin, and staring about confusedly.
Then the four men left the house, Scammel and his two companions lashing out at themselves for having even unwittingly permitted themselves to become the guests of a man of such monolithic cowardice. Blythe, sickened by the spinelessness of the man whom he had called to account, went to his rooms at the Carlton to dress for dinner at the Savoy.
Louise and Laura, neither of them in a conversational humor, had just finished dressing when Blythe, ushered by the pompous three-foot Buttons, walked in upon them, very "tall and wide" in his evening clothes. As he came under the light of the electrolier both women surveyed his face keenly and nervously for marks of a conflict.
"Of course he has been there," thought Laura, "but——"
Just then Blythe, in removing his right glove in rather a gingerly fashion, pulled with it a piece of white sticking plaster, and Laura perceived that the skin was missing from the middle knuckle of his right hand. Then she knew that he had "been there." But she did not hear what had happened that afternoon at the Curzon Street house until Scammel, whom she had known all her life, told her several months later in New York; Scammel, while Blythe had been making his explanation, having correctly guessed, being acquainted with nearly all the Americans in London, as to the identity of the chaperon of Blythe's ward.
CHAPTER XV
Before Louise had risen on the following morning Laura entered her bedroom and handed her an unopened cablegram. Louise tore open the envelope with trembling hands. She had no means of surmising the character of the message. Blythe had been purposely evasive in replying to Louise's questions as to whether her mother had looked ill when he had last seen her, for he disliked to be the bearer of disquieting news. His private report to Laura, however, as to the obvious state of Mrs. Treharne's health had been sufficiently alarming to cause Laura to lie awake a good part of the night, meditating as to whether she should tell Louise. Laura had read Mrs. Treharne's letter to Louise, announcing her departure from the house on the Drive for an undetermined destination; and this complicated the situation and was the reason why Laura withheld from Louise what Blythe had told her about her mother's gravely-declining health. Since the receipt of that letter no message had reached Louise from her mother, giving her address; and Laura had not elected to alarm the girl needlessly while Mrs. Treharne's address remained unknown.