Violet Wayne deferred her questions, though she was not satisfied. She had her duty to her hostess, and because news of what had happened had got about felt it incumbent on her to do what she could to lessen the vague constraint, especially as Tony, who wanted to think and could not, did nothing whatever. He was glad when the meal was over, but afterwards appeared to even less advantage in the billiard room, where one of the men commented on his play.
“You are showing remarkably bad form, Tony,” he said. “What is the matter with you? In your case it can’t be worry, because there is nothing a man could wish for you apparently haven’t got.”
Tony did worse at the next stroke, and put down his cue. “It’s a fact that I can’t play to-night,” he said. “You were not with us at the bridge, and it wasn’t a nice thing we had to do. As to the other remark, I suppose I’ve got my worries like the rest of you; but since you will get on just as well without me I think I’ll go to bed.”
He went out, and the man who had spoken laughed. “That is just the one thing that is wrong with Tony—he gives up too easily and doesn’t play the game out when it seems to be going against him,” he said. “He had Bernard Appleby to help him through at school, but I have a notion that Miss Wayne would do as much for him now if he would let her, and if he’s wise he will. Men like Tony generally find somebody to stand behind them, but that slackness is the only fault anybody could find in him. Tony never did a crooked thing.”
“No,” said another man dryly. “Still, it is comparatively easy to go straight when you are never called upon to stand up under a deflecting pressure.”
“If Tony hasn’t had to do that yet, he will most certainly have to sooner or later, and Miss Wayne is the woman to help him,” said his companion. “Will you take his cue and finish the fifty for him, Lonsdale? It is, you see, quite the usual thing.”
Tony in the meanwhile sat staring at the grate in his room. No definite course had yet occurred to him, but he was conscious of a vague relief. Davidson, at least, could not come back to trouble him, and Tony knew that his daughter, whom he had done no wrong, did not possess her father’s pertinacity. He fancied she could be easily dealt with, and rising with a little shake of his shoulders he went to bed, and, as it happened, slept almost as well as usual. Next day, however, events commenced to happen, for during the morning Godfrey Palliser received a visit from a sergeant of police. Soon afterwards he sent for Tony, and it was with distinct uneasiness the latter entered the library.
Godfrey Palliser sat, gray-haired and somewhat grim of face, beside the fire; and he was a punctilious English gentleman with a respect for conventional traditions and no great penetration, to whom Tony owed his present status and all he hoped for in the future. He had led a simple, wholesome life, and though it was perhaps not unwarranted, placed an undue value upon the respect his tenants and neighbors accorded him.
“This is an especially unfortunate affair,” he said. “Sit down. I want to talk to you.”
“Yes, sir,” said Tony, wondering what was coming.