When Mr Ravenscar stalked inside his house, twenty minutes after he had flung out of the back-parlour in St James’s Square, he was still in a towering rage, which showed itself plainly in his scowling brow, and thinned lips. His butler, unwise enough to make an innocuous remark about the weather when he admitted him to the house, had his head bitten off for his pains, and retired, much shaken, to the nether regions, where he informed his colleagues that if the master had not been crossed in love he did not know the signs.
Mr Ravenscar, throwing his gloves on to one chair, and his long, drab coat across another, shut himself up in his library, and spent an hour pacing up and down its length, a prey to the most violent and confused emotions he had ever experienced. He did not know whom he was most furious with, himself or Miss Grantham, and was dwelling savagely on this quite unimportant problem when he discovered that his bitterest anger was directed against Mablethorpe. He realized that it would afford him considerable pleasure to be able to take his cousin by the throat, and to choke the life out of him. This discovery enraged him still further, and he told himself savagely that he was well rid of a mercenary, heartless, unprincipled baggage. This brought no relief to his feelings; and although the wanton smashing of a Sevres figure which he had always detested, and which some nameless fool had dared to place upon the mantelpiece, afforded him a momentary gratification, its beneficial effects did not prove to be lasting. He continued to pace the floor, torn between a desire to strangle Miss Grantham and throw her body to the dogs, and an equally strong desire to serve Mablethorpe in this way instead, and to think out a fitting punishment for Miss Grantham which would, in some mysterious manner, entail her remaining in his power for the rest of her life.
It was not to be supposed that this ferocity could endure for long. It wore itself out presently, leaving Mr Ravenscar with a sense of corroding disillusionment, and a conviction that life held nothing further for him. In this painful mood, he went upstairs to change his clothes for dinner, vouchsafing not one word to his valet (who, after one swift glance at his face, was thankful for this forbearance), and attending so little to what he was doing that he allowed himself to be assisted into a coat which he had decided on the previous night that he would never wear again.
His stepmother and Arabella were dining out, a circumstance which relieved him of the necessity of going out himself; and he sat down in solitary state at the head of his long dining-table, and ate perhaps three mouthfuls of every dish which was presented to him, until he came to the syllabub, which he rejected with every evidence of loathing. The only thing he partook of freely was the port. His butler had had the forethought to bring up a bottle of the best from the cellar.
Mr Ravenscar, lost in a brown study, was still sitting at the dinner-table, his half-empty wine-glass in his hand, when the butler brought him a note, which had been delivered by hand.
Mr Ravenscar glanced at it indifferently, recognized Lady Mablethorpe’s writing, and picked it up, his lips tightening. It was brief, and to the point. It requested him to call in Brook Street at his earliest convenience.
There was scarcely any person whom Mr Ravenscar would not have preferred to confront that evening, but he was not one to put off a disagreeable task, and after tossing off the rest of his port, he told the butler to fetch his hat and cloak and walking-cane.
He went on foot to Brook Street, and was ushered immediately into the drawing-room on the first floor. Here he found his aunt, seated alone by the small fire, looking as though she had sustained a severe shock.
She waited only until the servant had withdrawn before exclaiming: “Oh, Max, have you heard what has happened?”
He had fully expected to be met by an outburst of wrath, and could only suppose that her ladyship’s first rage, like his own, had worn itself out. “Yes,” he replied curtly. “I know. I am sorry, aunt.”