It was dusk. The lamps of the station were being lighted five minutes before the express arrived, and as the lights flared up, Orlando entered the waiting-room of the station, with a lady on his arm, and presently showed at the platform doorway, smiling and cheerful. He did not blench when Mazarine came towards him. Mazarine had seen the flutter of a blue skirt in the waiting-room, and his wife had worn blue that day!
Orlando saw the heavy, offensive figure of Mazarine making for him. He, however, appeared to take no notice, though he watched his outrageous pursuer out of the corner of his eye, as he quietly gave orders to a porter concerning a little heap of luggage. When he had finished this, he turned, as it were casually, to Mazarine. Then he giggled in the face of the Master of Tralee. It was like the matador’s waving of the scarlet cloth in the face of the enraged bull. Having thus relieved his feelings, Orlando turned and walked to the door of the reception-room, but was stopped by the old man rushing at him. Swinging round, Orlando almost filled the doorway.
“You devil’s spawn,” Mazarine almost shouted, “get out of that doorway. I want my wife. You needn’t try to hide her. You thief! You lecherous circus rider! Stand aside—leper!”
Orlando coolly stretched out his elbows till they touched the sides of the door, and as the crowd pressed, he said to them mockingly:
“Get back, boys. Give him air. Can’t you see he’s gasping for breath.” Then he giggled again.
The old man looked round at the crowd, but he saw no sympathy—only aversion and ridicule. Suddenly he snatched his little black-bound Bible from his pocket, and held it up.
“What does this Book say?” he thundered. “It says that a wife shall cleave unto her husband until death. For the seducer and the betrayer death is the portion.”
The whistle of the incoming train was heard in the distance.
The old man was desperate. It was clear he meant to assault Orlando. “You will only take her away over my dead body,” he ground out in his passion. “The Lord gave, and only the Lord shall take away.” He gathered himself together for the attack.
Orlando waved a hand at him as one would at a troublesome child. At that instant, his mother stepped up behind him in the reception-room.