“Good!” said the doctor belligerently. “Me? I don’t! I said people now were no better. As for the men of that time, they were a cheap swaggering lot of bullies and swash-bucklers. When I read history I’m ashamed to be descended from them.”
“I desire to inform you, sah,” said the major, stung, “that I too am a descendant of those bullies and swash-bucklers, as you call them. And I wish from my heart I thought we, nowadays, could hold a tallow-dip to them. Whatever their habits, they had their ideals, and they lived up to them.”
“You refer, no doubt,” said the doctor with sarcasm, “to our friend Devil-John and his ideal treatment of his wife!”
“No, sah,” replied the major warmly. “I’m not referring to Devil-John. There were exceptions, no doubt, but for the most part they treated their women folk as I believe their Maker made them to be treated! The man who failed in his courtesy there, sah, was called to account for it. He was mighty apt to find himself standing in the cool dawn at the butt-end of a—”
He broke off and coughed. There was an awkward pause in which he set down his glass noisily and rose and stood before the open bookcase. “I envy you this, sah,” he said with somewhat of haste. “A fine old collection. Bless my soul, what a curious volume!”
As he spoke, his hand jerked out a heavy-looking leather-back. Valiant, who had risen and stood beside him, saw instantly that what he had drawn from the shelf was the morocco case that held the rusted dueling-pistol! In the major’s hands the broken box opened. A sudden startled look darted across his leonine face. With a smothered exclamation he thrust it back between the books and closed the glass door.
Valiant had paled. His previous finding of the weapon had escaped his mind. Now he read, as clearly as if it had been printed in black-letter across the sunny wall, the significance of the major’s confusion. That weapon had been in his father’s hand when he had faced his opponent in that fatal duel! It flashed across his mind as the doctor lunged for his hat and stick and got to his feet.
“Come, Bristow,” said the latter irritably. “Your feet will grow fast to the floor presently. We mustn’t talk a new neighbor to death. I’ve got to see a patient at six.”