But Charles, speaking to Hornby more as if he were master than servant, said, "Wait here;" and, stepping quickly from him, went into the room where Lord Welter sat alone, and shut the door. Hornby heard it locked behind him, and waited in the hall, listening intensely, for what was to follow.
"There'll be a row directly," said Hornby to himself; "and that chivalrous fool, Charles, has locked himself in. I wish Welter did not send all his servants out of the house at night. There'll be murder done here some day."
He listened and heard voices, low as yet—so low that he could hear the dripping of the rain outside. Drip—drip! The suspense was intolerable. When would they be at one another's throats?
CHAPTER XXXIX.
CHARLES'S EXPLANATION WITH LORD WELTER.
There is a particular kind of Ghost, or Devil, which is represented by an isosceles triangle (more or less correctly drawn) for the body; straight lines turned up at the ends for legs; straight lines divided into five at the ends for arms; a round O, with arbitrary dots for the features, for a head; with a hat, an umbrella, and a pipe. Drawn like this, it is a sufficiently terrible object. But, if you take an ace of clubs, make the club represent the head, add horns, and fill in the body and limbs as above, in deep black, with the feather end of the pen, it becomes simply appalling, and will strike terror into the stoutest heart.
Is this the place, say you, for talking such nonsense as this; If you must give us balderdash of this sort, could not you do so in a chapter with a less terrible heading than this one has? And I answer, Why not let me tell my story my own way? Something depends even on this nonsense of making devils out of the ace of clubs.
It was rather a favourite amusement of Charles's and Lord Welter's, in old times at Ranford. They used, on rainy afternoon's, to collect all the old aces of clubs (and there were always plenty of them to be had in that house, God help it), and make devils out of them, each one worse than the first. And now, when Charles had locked the door, and advanced softly up to Welter, he saw, over his shoulder, that he had got an ace of clubs, and the pen and ink, and was making a devil.
It was a trifling circumstance enough, perhaps; but there was enough of old times in it to alter the tone in which Charles said, "Welter," as he laid his hand on his shoulder.