“My dear, how can you talk such nonsense?” he said. “That’s pure sentimentality, Vi, born of the dark and the stars. You don’t really pity Raymond any more than I do, and I’m sure I don’t. I hate him; I always have, and I don’t pretend otherwise. Why, just now you were telling me not to mention him, and two minutes afterwards you are saying, ‘Poor Raymond.’”
“You were reminding me of what might have happened,” she said. “It was that I could not bear to think of. But I can be sorry for Raymond. After all, he took it very well when Uncle Philip told him what we were going to do. I believe he wanted me to be happy in spite of himself.”
This was too much for Colin; the temptation to stop Violet indulging in any further sympathy with Raymond was irresistible. She should know about Raymond, and hate him as he himself did. He had promised Raymond not to tell his father of a certain morning in the Old Park, but he had never promised not to tell Violet. Why he had not already done so he hardly knew; perhaps he was keeping it for some specially suitable occasion, such as the present moment.
“He wanted you to be happy, did he?” he exclaimed. “Do you really think that? If so, you won’t think it much longer. Now, do you remember the morning when there was an escaped lunatic in the park?”
“Yes,” said she.
“Raymond went out shooting pigeons, and I played golf. My bicycle punctured, and I walked home through the Old Park. There I found Raymond crouching behind the wall meaning to shoot me as I came round that sharp corner of the road. I came close up behind him while he watched for me by the rhododendrons, and, oh Lord! we had a scene! Absolutely scrumptious! There was I covering him with my revolver, which, all the time, hadn’t got a cartridge in it, and I made him confess what he was up to....”
“Stop, Colin; it’s not true!” cried she.
“It is true. He confessed it, and wrote it all down, and father and I witnessed it; and he signed it, and it’s at my bank now. Perhaps he thought you would be happier with him than me, and so from unselfish notions he had better fire a barrel of Number Five full in my face. All for your sake, Violet! My word, what unutterable bunkum!”
His hate had submerged him now; that final bitter ejaculation showed it clearly enough, and it pierced Violet like some metallic stab. He had no vestige of consideration for her, no faintest appreciation of the horror of his stinging narrative, which pealed out with some hellish sort of gaiety. She could not speak; she could only crouch and shudder.
Colin got up, scintillating with satisfaction. “I promised him not to tell father,” he said, “which was an act of great clemency. Perhaps it will be too great some day and I shall. And I didn’t distinctly mean to tell you, but you really forced me to when your heart began bleeding for that swine, and saying he wanted to make you happy. Come, Vi, buck up! Raymond didn’t get me. It was clever of him, by the way, to see his opportunity when the looney was loose. I rather respected that. Let’s go indoors and have our piquet.”