CHAPTER XIII
A FUTILE PROTEST
It was late at night, but Gladwyne sat, cigar in hand, in his library, while Batley lounged beside the hearth. A wood fire diffused a faint aromatic fragrance into the great high-ceilinged room, and the light of a single silver lamp flickered on the polished floor, which ran back like a sheet of black ice into the shadow. Heavily-corniced bookcases rose above it on either band, conveying an idea of space and distance by the way they grew dimmer as they receded from the light.
The room had an air of stateliness in its severe simplicity, and its owner, sitting just inside the ring of brightness, clad in conventional black and white, looked in harmony with it. Something in his finely-lined figure and cleanly-molded face stamped him as one at home in such a place. A decanter stood near his elbow, but it was almost full. Gladwyne, in many ways, was more of an ascetic than a sensualist, though this was less the result of moral convictions than of a fastidious temperament. The man had an instinctive aversion for anything that was ugly or unpleasant. His companion, dressed with an equal precision, looked different, more virile, coarser; he was fuller in figure and heavier in face.
“No,” declared Gladwyne with a show of firmness; “the line must be drawn. I’ve already gone farther than I should have done.”
“I’m sorry for you, Gladwyne—you don’t seem to realize that a man can’t very well play two widely different parts at once,” Batley rejoined, smiling. “Your interfering Canadian friend would describe your attitude as sitting upon the fence. It’s an uncomfortable position, one that’s not often tenable for any length of time. Hadn’t you better make up your mind as to which side you’ll get down on?”
Gladwyne looked uneasy. The choice all his instinct prompted him to make was not open to him, except at a cost which he was hardly prepared to face. He was known as a bold rider, he had the steady nerves that usually result from a life spent in the open air, but, as Batley recognized, he lacked stamina.
“You are going wide of the mark,” he answered. “What I have asked you to do is to let the lad alone. The thing’s exciting comment. You”—he hesitated—“have made enough out of him.”
“I think,” replied the other coolly, “I was very much to the point. If you don’t recognize this, I’ll ask: Suppose I don’t fall in with your request, what then?”