“Hullo, Raymond! Drowning dull care?” he asked. “That’s right. I can’t bear seeing you so down. By Jove, didn’t Violet look lovely to-night with her hair brought low over her forehead?”
“Did she?” said Raymond. He tried to entrench himself in self-control; he tried to force himself to get up and go, but hatred of Colin easily stormed those defences. “Stop and listen,” said that compelling voice. “Glut yourself with it: Love is not for you; hate is as splendid and as absorbing....”
“Did she?” echoed Colin. “As if you hadn’t been devouring her all the evening! But we all have our turn, don’t we? Every dog has its day. Last week I used to see you and Violet; now you see Violet and me. Tell me, Raymond, does Violet look happy? We can talk so confidentially, can’t we, as we have both been in the same position? What a ticklish thing it is to be a girl’s lover. How it ages one! I feel sixty. But does she seem happy? She used to wear a sort of haunted look last week. I suppose that was her wonder and her misgiving at a man’s brutal adoration. It frightened her. As if we weren’t frightened too! Did the idea of marriage terrify you as it terrifies me? A girl’s adoration is just as brutal.”
Colin moved about the room as he spoke, dropping the sentences out like measured doses from some phial of a potent drug. After each he paused, waiting for a reply, and drinking glee from the silence. In that same silence Raymond was stoking his fires which were already blazing.
“Yes, every dog has its day,” he said, replenishing his glass.
“And every dog has his drink,” said Colin. “Lord, how you’ll get your revenge when your day comes! What sweetness in your cup that Vi and I will never be allowed to come to Stanier again. You’ll like that, Raymond. You’ll have married by that time. I wonder if it will be the tobacconist’s girl who’ll have hooked you. You’ll be happier with her than Vi, you know, and I shouldn’t wonder if Vi will be happier with me than with you....”
Still there was silence on Raymond’s part.
“You must be more cheerful, Raymond,” said Colin. “Whatever you may do to me hereafter, you had better remember that I’m top-dog just now. I shall have to ask father to send you away after all, if you don’t make yourself more agreeable. It was I who made him allow you to stop here, and I will certainly have you sent away if you’re not kinder to me. You must be genial and jolly, though it’s a violence to your nature. You must buck up and be pleasant. So easy, and so profitable. Nothing to say?”
There was a step outside, and their father entered. He carried an opened letter in his hand.
“I’ve just had a note from the governor of the asylum at Repstow,” he said. “One of their patients has escaped, a homicidal lunatic.”