But it wasn’t Bantison’s lucky night. As they sat down, Sir Harry cast a host’s glance round the table in search of a subject with which to set the conversational ball rolling again, and saw the spasm of malevolence which marked Bantison’s face in the moment of irresolution. “I’gad,” he cried to the table at large, “will you do me the favor to observe Bantison? A gargoyle come to meat. If it isn’t the prettiest picture I ever saw of devotion incarnate. Watch him meditating piety.”
The company gave tongue obsequiously, ready in any case to dance when Whitworth piped, doubly ready in the case where a parson was the butt. Their mirth happened inopportunely for Bantison, proving at that crisis of his indecision, a turning point. Left alone, he would have remained passive: the taunt awoke aggression.
“I crave your pardon, Sir Harry. I was in thought.”
“The pangs of it gave your face a woundy twist. Out with the harvest of it, man! A musing that gave you so much travail should shed new light on the kingdom of heaven.”
“I was thinking,” said Bantison, “of a kingdom more apocryphal; of the kingdom of the Stuarts,” and his eye, called Swivel, fell accusingly on Hepplestall.
The attack was sudden, with the advantage of surprise, but in that company of slow-moving brains, already dulled by wine, there was none but Reuben who saw in Bantison’s allusion and Bantison’s quick-darting eye an attack at all. So far, the affair was easy. “They have their place,” said Reuben gravely, “in history.”
“And—,” began Bantison combatively, but Sir Harry cut him short. “Drown history,” he said, “and mend your thoughts, Bantison. A glass of wine with you.” Aggression subsided in Bantison; he murmured, and felt, that it was an honor to drink with Sir Harry. For the time, the incident was closed.
Reuben pondered the case of Mr. Bantison, worm or adder, and admitted to disquiet. This devil of an unconsidered parson, this Swivel-Eyed Jack who seemed good for nothing but to suck up nourishment, and to be the target of contemptuous and contemptible wit, had got within his guard, had plainly detected the meaning of the obscure ritual by which he honored the king over the water and mentally snapped his fingers at Sir Harry even while he dined with him. And Reuben Hepplestall did not mean to forego that mental luxury of finger-snapping at Sir Harry. He damned Sir Harry, but damned more heartily this unexpected impediment to the damning of Sir Harry. And if Bantison showed resolution, so much the worse for him; of the two it was certainly not Reuben Hepplestall who was coming to shipwreck; and how much the worse it was for Bantison depended exactly on that reverend gentleman’s movements. The first move, at any rate, had been a foolish one: it had warned Reuben.
The second move was still more foolish: really, Mr. Bantison’s career as a blackmailer had lain in rosy places, and he grew careless through success. Besides, since Sir Harry had silenced him, forgiven him, drunk with him, Mr. Bantison, as blackmailer, was off duty and a man must have some relaxation; but Burgundy plays the deuce with discretion and was, all the time, brightening his wits in the same ratio as it made him careless of Hepplestall’s resentment. An idea, that was not at all a stupid idea, but in itself a dazzling idea, came into his mind, and the glamor of it obscured any discretion the Burgundy might have left him. Hanging from Hepplestall’s fob were several seals. They interested Mr. Bantison.
By this time not a few appreciators of the Whitworth cellar had slid from their chairs to the floor, and there was nothing exceptional about that. For what reason were their chairs so well designed, so strongly made and yet so excellently balanced but that a man might slide gently from them without the danger of a nasty jar to his chin as it hit the table? Chairs beautiful, and—adapted to their users when to be drunk without shame was a habit. Some one was on the floor by Hepplestall, leaving a vacant chair. Bantison, obsessed by his idea, exaggerated slightly a drunkenness by no means imaginary, lurched from his seat on a mission of discovery and took the empty place by Hepplestall. “What’s the hour?” he asked.