“Well, I hope you’re as rich as you think you are. Father,” said Charmian. “Though personally I should doubt it.”
Penhallow signed imperatively to Reuben to refill his wine-glass, and turned his head to look at Raymond. “Well? well?” he said. “You’re not usually backward in giving me your opinion of my actions? Lost your tongue all of a sudden?”
“You know very well what my opinion is,” Raymond replied curtly.
“To think I was forgetting that I’d already had the benefit of your criticism!” Penhallow exclaimed. “Held a pistol to my head, didn’t you? Well, well, it’s been a foolish day one way or another! Clara, old lady, here’s to you!”
Raymond chanced to look up, as Penhallow was drinking his sister’s health. He found that Jimmy, who was helping Reuben to wait upon them all, was watching him covertly, an expression of mingled curiosity and gloating on his dark face. He stiffened, remembering what had seemed of little importance in the first shock of his discovery, that it had been Jimmy who had rushed in to pull him off his father’s throat that morning, and that with a promptitude which suggested that he had all the time been listening at the door. As he stared into Jimmy’s spiteful eyes, so deadly a look came into his own that Jimmy changed colour.
The blood seemed to Raymond to drum in his head. He lowered his gaze to his plate, thinking, He knows!
There were too many animated conversations in progress round the table for anyone to have leisure to observe this tiny interlude; nor did Raymond’s silence occasion any remark. It was supposed that one of his moody, taciturn fits had descended upon him. By the time that Bart addressed an inquiry to him across the table he had regained command over his faculties, and was able to answer with a calm that surprised himself.
Having disposed of several glasses of burgundy, Penhallow was inspired, when he was left alone with his sons at the table, to order Reuben to go down to the cellars to fetch up a couple of bottles of the ’96 port.
“Anyone would think,” said Reuben dampingly, “that it was your birthday today, which it isn’t.”
“I shan’t waste the ’96 port on Venngreen and Phin Ottery,” declared Penhallow. “You be off with you, and fetch it up! A glass of port. will do me a power of good.”