"We'd better look the thing in the face. I'm an Eurasian, and illegitimate at that. Are you going to own me before your friends?"
"Yes. I don't care what you are by circumstance. Illegitimacy and race are nothing to me. A man's a man."
"That's not the law," Barclay returned sneeringly.
"And I don't care a fig for the law either," Tristram said with a faint smile.
Barclay was silent. A dull anger was kindling in him. It was a deeper, more dangerous passion than that which had driven him to strike before he had intended. It had its roots in their fundamental antagonism of character as it revealed itself now, in Barclay's failure to strike hatred out of a man he hated. For a moment whatever was fine in him had flashed up in response to Tristram's simple humanity, but that was gone, and there remained nothing but the galling recognition of an inferiority which was not that of race or circumstance. And with that recognition the little light he had within him went out.
"That's all very well," he said at last, "but it's just talk. It won't help me. If you did recognize me, neither of us would get anything out of it. I should have to leave Gaya, and you'd get into trouble. That's not my game. The only brotherly act I ask of you is to leave me alone."
"I have told you already I don't want to interfere. I've got to."
Barclay gnawed at his thick under-lip, holding himself in, calculating.
"Look here," he began again, "I guess I've inherited something from my mother besides my infernal colour—a sort of instinct—a knowledge of people. That night I met you at Sigrid Fersen's I found out something about you. I knew what was going on in you though you didn't know it yourself. I know what's wrong with you now. Well, I'll do the brotherly first. If you treat me fairly, you'll have nothing to fear from me—and besides that, I'll give you the straight tip—I know something of Sigrid Fersen. She wants the cream of life—it's a sort of religion with her. In London there wasn't a man or woman who could stand up to her in magnificence. There were the wildest stories told about her, and they were truer than most stories. She wouldn't stand this sort of thing—not if she were dying of love for you. Take my word for it—you'll want money—any amount of it—then you'll stand a chance with her——"
Tristram, urged by a sudden disgust, and an intolerable unrest, turned Arabella's head and touched her to a walk. But Barclay was beside him, leaning towards him, talking rapidly.