"And why not?" said Ambert, who was a cur of the first water, and now thought to derive some fun out of the curate. "Of course, I know it is a sore subject. She played with you, didn't she?"— he grinned into the other's face—"as a cat would play with a mouse. But, after all, she wasn't going to throw herself away on" —he paused with the plain design of making his insult worse— "on a common fellow like you!"
He knew Blount was of good family, and he thus purposely affronted him.
"Confound you, sir!" roared the curate. "Say that again, and I'll knock every one of your damned teeth down your throat!"
Ambert laughed in his usual slow, sneering way. He did not believe that Blount would make his word good, he had been so patient up to this—all through his (Ambert's) courtship of Elfrida. "Are you desirous of hearing it again?" said he. He laughed. "After all, what is there to be offended at? You are a common fellow, aren't you?"
Blount took one step forward, and caught him by the collar. Then he wrenched the cane out of his hand, and—well, he enjoyed himself thoroughly for fully five minutes. At the end of that time Ambert was lying on the ground cursing but cowed, and the curate was standing over him. It had been a great five minutes.
"There, get up!" said Blount.
And Ambert rose slowly, sullenly, to his feet.
"You'll hear more of this, sir," said he; but his attempt at dignity was sadly spoiled by the fact that he was covered with dust, and that he had evidently a very strongly-developed desire to keep out of range of Blount.
"Oh, go home!" said the curate contemptuously.
Ambert took his advice. He limped quietly through the trees beyond to where he knew of a side-walk that would take him to his house in ten minutes. He cursed and whimpered as he went. Who was going to explain his absence to his guests? He found a ray of comfort in the thought that Elfrida—that nobody but the curate knew: and he was a big man and the curate nobody; and, of course, as there were no witnesses, the big man's story would be believed.