Roddy's voice interrupted.
"Mr. Breton, I think you forget——"
Instantly Breton stopped. He forced control upon his voice, he stammered, "I'm ashamed—I oughtn't to have—But sitting there—not being allowed to speak—you must excuse me——"
He turned round to Roddy. "You must think me the most complete blackguard. It's only a climax to everything that's happened since I came back. I don't want to defend myself, but it isn't—it isn't all so simple as just talking about it makes it look. You're the kind of man to whom everything's just black or white—you do it or you don't—but I—I've never found that. I've been in things without knowing I've been in them. I've done things that would have turned out straight for any other fellow, but they've always been crooked for me. Something always blinds me just when I need to see straightest. That's no excuse, but it's an awful handicap.
"I won't hide or pretend about it. Why should I? I loved Rachel. We've only met so little—really only that once in my rooms—that you can't grudge us that. We had things—heaps of things—in common long before we knew one another. It wasn't like any ordinary two people meeting, and I knew so well that she could make all the difference to my life that I took the chance of knowing her even though she wasn't ever going to belong to me. I don't think I ever really believed that I'd be the man. I know now that she's yours altogether and you ought to have her—now that I've seen you I know that. And last night when I faced the fact that I'd have to go all my life without her I realized what she told me long ago, that it was much better just to have my idea of her and not to have had my regret about having spoiled anything for her. I've no confidence in myself, you see. If I thought I were the kind of man just to carry her off and make her happy for ever and ever, then I suppose I'd have been bolder about her long ago, but I know, even if she didn't belong to you at all, that I should be afraid that I'd spoil her life just as I've always spoiled my own.
"I expect this is all very confused. It's all so difficult and you don't want long explanations, but I'm only trying to say that you needn't ever have any fear again that I'm going to step in or try to have any part in her. We've got our things together that nobody can take from us. We've seen each other so little that most people would say it wasn't much to give up. But things don't happen only when you're together...." He stopped suddenly, seemed to stand there confused, turned and flung a fierce, defiant look at his grandmother—exactly the glance that an angry small boy flings at someone in authority who has seen fit to punish him—then went back to his corner and stood there in the shadow, watching them all.
Even as he finished speaking he had realized finally that his relationship with Rachel was over, closed, done for. He had known it on that afternoon in the park—He had realized it perhaps again in the heart of the storm last night, but now, when he had seen the soul pierce, through Rachel's eyes, to her husband, he knew that Roddy, one way or another, had at last won her.
Moreover, to anyone as impressionable as Breton, Roddy's helplessness, his humour, his bravery had, on the score of Roddy alone, settled the matter. Breton had his fierce moments, his high inspirations, his noble resolves!... Now, as he looked this last time upon Rachel, his was no mean spirit.
Rachel drew a sharp breath and looked at Roddy with wide eyes, flooded with fear. He had heard now everything that they had to say; although she had watched him so closely she could not say what he would do. As she saw the two men there before her she felt that she knew Francis Breton exactly, that she could tell what he would say, how he would see things, what would anger him or surprise him.
But about Roddy she was always uncertain: she was only now, very slowly, beginning to know him, but she was sure that if Roddy were to beat her she would care for him the more, but if Francis Breton were to beat her she would leave him for ever.