He might answer by reminding Harmon of old times. He might say that he at least resigned the hope of that right, when Harmon had been his friend, because he had believed that it was for Helen's happiness.
That would be but a miserably unsatisfactory answer, though it would be the truth. The colonel did not remember that he had ever wished to strike a man with a whip until the present moment. But the sight of the cut on Helen's forehead had changed him very quickly. He was not sure that he could keep his hands from Harmon if he should see him. And slowly a sort of cold and wrathful glow rose in his face, and he felt as though his long, thin fingers were turning into steel springs.
Miss Wimpole had taken up a book and was reading. She heard him move in his chair, and looked up and saw his expression.
"What is the matter with you, Richard?" she enquired, in surprise.
"Why?" He started nervously.
"You look like the destroying angel," she observed calmly. "I suppose you are gradually beginning to be angry about Sylvia's hat, as I was. I don't wonder."
"Oh yes--Sylvia's hat; yes, yes, I remember." The colonel passed his hand over his eyes. "I mean, it is perhaps the heat. It's a warm day. I'll go to my room for a while."
"Yes, do, my dear. You behave so strangely to-day--as if you were going to be ill."
But the colonel was already gone, and was stalking down the corridor with his head high, his eyes as hard as polished grey stones, and his nervous hands clenched as they swung a little with his gait.
His sister shook her head energetically, then slowly and sadly, as she watched him in the distance.