The table was littered and disordered, the coffee pot had got knocked over; there was a cup lying on its side in the saucer; a dish of bacon containing a couple of rashers and two eggs congealed in fat, and scraps of meat and broken bits of bread and butter lay about on the cloth.
This was like anything but one of the many orderly breakfasts which he had shared with Maxwell at the same table; but what startled Ernshaw more than anything else was the sight of the empty glass beside his friend's plate, the brandy decanter with less than a wine-glassful in it, and the two empty soda syphons on the table.
"Good morning, Ernshaw! Morning, dad! Jolly glad to see you. Come in and sit down and have a drink—I mean, a bit of breakfast. The coffee's cold, but I can get you some more if you wouldn't rather have brandy and soda—plenty more brandy in the cupboard, soda too. Get it out and help yourselves. Dad, you know Garthorne, of course. Ernshaw, you don't; let me introduce you—very good fellow—old rival of mine in love—you know who with, the fellow I had a fight with on the steamer—both kids—first man to come and congratulate me this morning. Admits that I licked him then as a boy, and have licked him since as a man—took better degree than he did. Still, nice of him to come, wasn't it? Come on, Ernshaw; don't stand there staring. Come on and have a drink, too, and congratulate, you old stick. Never mind about last night, I've got that all under now; fought it for two years and beaten it. Can take a drink now without fear of consequences. Taken lots this morning, and look at me, sober as the Chancellor. Why, dad, what's the matter?"
Sir Arthur Maxwell had come up to Oxford to see his own old academic triumphs repeated with added brilliance by his son. He had fully approved of all that Vane had done during the two years' probation which he had set himself, and he had firmly believed that the end of it all would be, as he had many a time said to Enid's father, that the hard study, the strenuous mental discipline, and the stress of healthy emulation, would utterly destroy the germs of that morbid feeling which, for a time at least, had poisoned the promise of his son's youth. He had only arrived from Town, bringing Enid and her father, that morning, as they had found it impossible to get rooms in Oxford over night. He had met Ernshaw in the High, and they had come together to Vane's rooms to find this!
Like a flash that other scene in Warwick Gardens came back to him. While his son was speaking he had looked into his eyes and seen that mocking, dancing flame which he had now a doubly terrible reason to remember, and to see it there in his eyes now on the morning of the crowning day of his youth, shining like a bale-fire of ruin through the morning sky of his new life. It was like looking down into hell itself.
As Vane came towards him he staggered back as though he hardly recognised him. Then, for the first time for nearly thirty years since a well-remembered night among the Indian Hills, the room swam round him and the light grew dark. He made a couple of staggering steps towards the sofa, tripped over the edge of a rug, and rolled over, half on and half off the sofa.
The sight sobered Vane instantaneously, though only for an instant.
"Dad, what's the matter?" he cried again. "My God, Ernshaw, what is it? Tell me, what is it—what have I done? Let me go and see what's wrong with him."
Then with stumbling steps he tried to get round the table. The corner of it caught his thigh. He lurched sideways and dropped to the floor like a man shot through the brain.
Garthorne was already kneeling by the sofa on to which he had lifted Sir Arthur's head and shoulders, and had loosened his tie and collar.