Then there was another awkward silence, which Lord Benthorpe did not much relieve by saying twice the words, “I hope, ... I hope,” and looking round with an uncertain smile.
Mr Harbury broke in, with the air of a man whose thought has matured; he leant his chin upon his left hand, and looked steadily at Mr Burden.
“Mr Burden, I think you will admit that Mr Abbott should have come in. If he does not come in, we are absolutely bound to oppose him with all our force. You see that as well as I do. You cannot justly complain if we destroy that which attempts to destroy us. You cannot justly complain if you refuse to persuade him further, and refuse also to help us in our self-defence against him. There is no possible third course.”
All this was said fixedly and clearly, as Mr Harbury had long learnt to say the thing that should dominate a weak man’s mind; but Mr Burden was so ill as to be perverse and irrational; and the anger that makes men drunk was rising up in him again.
He cried much louder than he had meant:
“I have said all I have to say.”
His anger filled and impelled him; he kept control of his body to some extent, but no longer of his mind; and he continued still loudly, without reason, and forgetting his determination to be cold:
“I will not be a party to any intrigue against my friend!”
Now such are the limits of human nature, and such is its feebleness, that even men like Mr Barnett (who had known all his life how to manage men) can lose their steadfast poise in a sharp moment of wrath. He looked round smartly, he put his face somewhat too suddenly forward, as towards an opponent, and thrust into Mr Burden’s already kindled fires the fuel of an insult.
Those two deep sunken lines which marked the financier’s heavy cheeks like furrows and drew down the lowering corners of his mouth, were contracted into a kind of intense sneer; and he said, without opening his teeth: