"That's the very thing I like about you, Jack," said his late host derisively. "I can always depend upon you to look after the ladies. They will be absolutely safe while you are with them. There is a distinct advantage in having a real gentleman about. You see, I can't always be on hand to—to protect them from such bullies as Thomas Braddock."
His allusion to Braddock was strikingly impersonal.
"I am making you my first lieutenant—no, my aide-de-camp, Jack. All you are required to do is to obey orders. Don't run the risk of a court-martial, my lad. It occurs to me that an uncle of yours has had an experience of that—but, never mind. Your first duty, sir, is to convince the ladies that I shall expect them to be in better humor when I return from the East."
The words came from his lips with biting emphasis; the smooth oily tone was gone. There was no pretense now; he was showing his fangs.
David could only glare at him, white to the lips. He could not speak. He could only look the hatred that welled in his heart. But down in that heart he was telling himself that some day he would crush this monster.
Colonel Grand studied the clean-cut, aristocratic face for a moment. A conciliatory smile came to his lips.
"Don't forget that I am doing you a good turn," he said. "Christie is a very pretty girl. She's fond of you. If you're smart, you'll make the most of her. You ought to thank me instead of—ah, but I see you do thank me." He willfully misjudged the expression on David's face. "I see no reason why you can't spend a most agreeable season with us. Jack."
"Colonel Grand," said David very slowly, controlling himself admirably, "if it were not that I now regard it as my sacred duty to stay with this show, I would defy you, sir, and denounce you, let the consequences be as disastrous to me as you like. I am not afraid of you. I can go back home—to jail—with my head up and my heart clean, if you choose to send me there. I am not afraid of even that. But I am afraid of something else. That is why I am ready to bear your insults, to humble myself, to submit to your—your commands. Not for my own safety, but for the safety of others. Permit me, sir, as a gentleman, to assure you that you can depend on me to carry out at least a part of your instructions as faithfully as God will let me. I mean by that, sir, your instructions to protect the ladies!"
He turned on his heel and left the Colonel standing there, a flush mounting to his flabby cheek.
"Braddock," he said, a few minutes later, "I'm going to break that Jenison boy if it takes me a year—yes, ten years."