“Gosh, I’ll lock my door,” said Colin. “No use for him. What else, father?”
“It’s no joke, Colin. The keeper at the Repstow Lodge was out attending to the pheasants’ coops this afternoon, and while he was gone a man vaulted over the fence, frightened his wife into hysterics, and decamped with his gun and a bag of cartridges. Then he bolted into the woods. It’s almost certain that he is the escaped lunatic.”
Raymond, who had been listening intently, yawned.
“But they’re out after him, I suppose,” he said. “They’ll be sure to catch him.”
Colin wondered what that yawn meant.... To any boy of twenty—to himself anyhow—there was a spice of excitement about the news. It was impossible not to be interested. But Raymond did not seem to be interested.... Or did he wish it to appear that he was not interested?
Colin, with an eye on Raymond, turned to his father. Two or three more little darts were ready for his brother, at which he would not yawn....
“Oh, father,” said he, “come and sleep in my room and we’ll take watches. What glorious fun. You shall take the watch from midnight till, till half-past eight in the morning, and then you’ll wake me up, and I’ll take the watch till five in the afternoon without a wink of sleep. Then Raymond and Vi can slumber in safety. Now I shall go upstairs and say good-night to Vi——”
“Better not tell her about it to-night,” said Lord Yardley.
“Rather not: we shall have other things to talk about, thanks. But not a minute before half-past eight, father. Good-night; good-night, Raymond. Sleep well.”
Raymond, in spite of these good wishes, passed an almost sleepless night. If he shut his eyes it was to see Colin’s mocking face floating on the darkness of his closed lids, and to have echoing in his ears the mockery of Colin’s jibes. As he passed Violet’s door on his way up to bed he had heard the sound of speech and laughter from within, and his jealousy seemed to arrest his tip-toeing steps, so that what he might overhear should give it the bitter provender it loved. But some new-born fear of Colin made him go on instead of lingering: Colin seemed prospered in all he did by some hellish protection; a mysterious instinct might warn him that there was a listener, and he would throw open the door and with a laugh call Violet to see who was eavesdropping on the threshold.... Then after they had laughed and pointed at him, Colin would shut the door again, locking it for fear of—of a homicidal maniac—and the talking would go on again till it was quenched in kisses....