His voice was as grim as his look. A sudden, odd sense of fear went through Piers. Sharply the thought ran through his mind that the same Evesham devil possessed them both. It was as if he had caught a glimpse of the monster gibing at his elbow, goading him, goading them, both.
He made a sharp, involuntary movement; he almost flinched from those pitiless, stony eyes.
"Ha!" Sir Beverley uttered a brief and very bitter laugh. "You've begun to think better of it, eh?"
"No, sir." Curtly Piers made answer, speaking because he must. "I meant what I said, and I shall stick to it. But it wasn't for the sake of defying you that I said it. I have a better reason than that."
He was still quivering with anger, yet because of that gibing devil at his elbow he strove to speak temperately, strove to hold back the raging flood of fierce resentment that threatened to overwhelm him.
As for Sir Beverley, he had never attempted to control himself in moments such as these, and he did not attempt to do so now. Before Piers' words were fairly uttered, he had raised his right hand and in it a stout, two-foot ruler that he had taken from the writing-table.
"Take that then, you young dog!" he shouted, and struck Piers furiously, as he stood. "And that! And that!"
The third blow never fell. It was caught in mid-air by Piers who, with eyes that literally flamed in his white face, sprang straight at his grandfather, and closed with him.
There was a brief—a very brief—struggle, then a gasping oath from Sir Beverley as the ruler was torn from his grasp. The next moment he was free and tottering blindly. Piers, with an awful smile, swung the weapon back as if he would strike him down with it. Then, as Sir Beverley clutched instinctively at the nearest chair for support, he flung savagely round on his heel, altering his purpose. There followed the loud crack of rending wood as he broke the ruler passionately across his knee, putting forth all his strength, and the clatter of the falling fragments as he hurled them violently from him.
And then in a silence more dreadful than any speech, he strode to the door and went out, crashing it furiously shut behind him.