“What are you to do?” he said. “You are to do exactly what you are doing. You’re to cling to me, and trust me. Ah, you’re entrancing! But I’ve got something to tell you, Vi, something stupendous. We must go in; I can’t tell you here, for not even the trees nor the terrace must know, though it concerns them.”
“But, Colin, about Raymond. I can’t be sure....”
He pressed her to him, thrilled all through at this ebb and flow of her emotional struggle.
“You’ve finished with Raymond, I tell you,” he said. “You’ve given him up and you’ve given up Stanier, haven’t you; you’ve given up everything?”
Some diabolical love of cruelty for its own sake; of torturing her by prolonging the decision which pulled at her this way and that, possessed him.
“It’s a proud hour for me, Vi,” he said. “I love Stanier as madly as you do, and you’ve given it up for me. I adore you for doing that; you’ll never repent it. I just hug these moments, though there must come an end to them. Let us go in, or Raymond will be looking for us again. Go straight to your room. I shall come there in five minutes, for there’s something I must tell you to-night. I must just have one look at Raymond first. That’s for my own satisfaction.”
Colin could not forego that look at Raymond. He knew how he should find him, prospering with a glass of whisky, disposed, as his father had said, to be brotherly, having all the winning cards in his hand. Stanier would be his, and, before that, Violet would be his, and Colin might be allowed, if he were very amiable, to spend a week here occasionally when Raymond came to his throne, just as now he had been allowed a starlit stroll with Violet. These were indulgences that would not be noticed by his plenitude, morsels let fall from the abundant feast. The life only of one man, already old, lay between him and the full consummation; already his foot was on the steps where the throne was set. Just one glance then at victorious Raymond....
Raymond fulfilled the highest expectations. Whisky had made him magnanimous; he was pleased to have granted Colin that little starlit stroll with Violet, it was a crumb from the master’s table. His heavy face wore a look of great complacency as his brother entered.
“Hullo, Colin,” he said. “Finished making love to Violet?”
Colin grinned. “You old brute!” he said. “Not content with having everything yourself, you must mock me for my beggary. You lucky fellow.”