“I would.”
“And every damned servant in the castle would swear you free,” whimpered his lordship. “Do you think I can’t see what silly asses they are about you? They hate me. I haven’t a friend in the world but my man, and he could be bought by anybody. You’d be a murderer all the same, though.”
“That would not disturb me for a moment.”
Bridgminster felt of his flabby muscles. His jaw fell, his eye rolled. “Do you mean to murder me?” he gasped.
Ordham hesitated deliberately, never removing his eyes. “No,” he said finally. “It would be a nasty business. But I want that money.”
Bridgminster rose heavily. “Come into the office,” he said.
Ordham followed the lord of the manor into his shabby sanctuary. The air was stale, the windows unopened. There was a bottle of Scotch whiskey on the table. Bridgminster sat down at the desk, and after some fumbling found his check book and wrote an order for a thousand pounds. The act seemed to restore his equilibrium for the moment. He tore out the check and flung it at his brother, who stood negligently beside the desk, but with nothing of indifference in the eyes into which he seemed to have thrown the whole weight of his brain.
“There!” he shouted. “Take it and be damned. And not another penny as long as I live—as long as I live—Oh! I’m off my feed! I’m off my feed!” He broke down, and flinging his head into his arms, wept aloud.
Ordham, who had had as much as he could endure, left the room and went up to his own. His forehead was damp and cold, he trembled slightly. He doubted if ever again he should be equal to a similar concentration of his faculties, even over a demoralized drunkard; certainly he had no desire to repeat the hideous experience. Better marry and have done with it.
He did not go down to the terrace, but sat at his window until long after midnight. He felt sick and disgusted, little elated at the successful termination of his visit and the prospect of a year or two’s peace of mind. A thousand pounds seemed to him a poor compensation for his descent into those foul depths of human nature where the civilized brute slays with his mind even if he withhold his hand. It was his disposition to dwell on the fair and splendid surfaces, harming no man and ignoring the primal passions that crawled over their sands below. Had he, upon his majority, realized the expectations of his careless boyhood, it is doubtful if he ever would have experienced a mean, much less a criminal, impulse, for, although this may be said of many men, Ordham had true refinement of mind and a surpassing indolence. He was a fair sample of all that civilization has yet accomplished for its aristocracies, and had no desire even to be reminded of elemental instincts, much less to be their victim. And the wretched want of money, of a petty thousand pounds, had transformed himself and his brother into two aboriginals. He might in time banish the sensations and impulses he had experienced to-night, but he doubted if he could ever forget the bestial degradation of the head of his house.