“And the cause of their quarrel?” Francis asked.
“There might have been a hundred reasons,” Sir Timothy observed. “As a matter of fact, it was the eternal one. There is no need to mention a woman's name, so we will let it go at that.”
There was a moment's silence—a strange, unforgettable moment for Francis Ledsam, who seemed by some curious trick of the imagination to have been carried away into an impossible and grotesque world. The hum of eager conversation, the popping of corks, the little trills of feminine laughter, all blended into one sensual and not unmusical chorus, seemed to fade from his ears. He fancied himself in some subterranean place of vast dimensions, through the grim galleries of which men and women with evil faces crept like animals. And towering above them, unreal in size, his scornful face an epitome of sin, the knout which he wielded symbolical and ghastly, driving his motley flock with the leer of the evil shepherd, was the man from whom he had already learnt to recoil with horror. The picture came and went in a flash. Francis found himself accepting a courteously offered cigar from his companion.
“You see, the story is very much like many others,” Sir Timothy murmured, as he lit a fresh Cigar himself and leaned back with the obvious enjoyment of the cultivated smoker. “In every country of the world, the animal world as well as the human world, the male resents his female being taken from him. Directly he ceases to resent it, he becomes degenerate. Surely you must agree with me, Mr. Leddam?”
“It comes to this, then,” Francis pronounced deliberately, “that you stage-managed the whole affair.”
Sir Timothy smiled.
“It is my belief, Mr. Ledsam,” he said, “that you grow more and more intelligent every hour.”
Sir Timothy glanced presently at his thin gold watch and put it back in his pocket regretfully.
“Alas!” he sighed, “I fear that I must tear myself away. I particularly want to hear the last act of 'Louise.' The new Frenchwoman sings, and my daughter is alone. You will excuse me.”
Francis nodded silently. His companion's careless words had brought a sudden dazzling vision into his mind. Sir Timothy scrawled his name at the foot of his bill.