It was then, perhaps, force of ancestry quite as much as the virtue of the Blackhampton ale that moved William Hollis to his sudden and remarkable act of self-assertion. For as Josiah Munt passed him, head in air, and weather eye fixed upon the western gables of Strathfieldsaye, his son-in-law stopped, swung round and called after him in a voice that could be heard even by the decorative artist at work on the gate—
“Sally out of Quod yet?”
IV
BY not so much as the quiver of an eyelid did Mr. Munt betray that he had even heard, much less taken cognizance, of that which amounted to a studied insult on the part of William Hollis. The proprietor of the Duke of Wellington converged upon the gate of Strathfieldsaye with head upheld, with dignity unimpaired. He even cast one cool glance at the handiwork of the inspired Wickens, but made no comment upon it, while the artist suspended his labors, opened the gate obsequiously, and waited for the great man to pass through. But when Mr. Munt had walked along the carriage drive to within a few yards of his newly bedizened front door, he stopped all of a sudden like a man who has received a blow in the face.
Had Bill Hollis at that moment been able to obtain a glimpse of his father-in-law he would have seen that his shaft had gone right home. A sternly domineering countenance was distorted with passion. There was a rage of suffering in the fierce yellow-brown eyes, there was a twist of half strangled torment in the lines of the hard mouth. As the lord of Strathfieldsaye stood clenching his hands in the center of the gravel he was not an attractive figure. Before entering the house he took off the white hat and soothed the pressure upon head and neck by passing over them a red bandanna handkerchief.
A trim parlor maid, bright as a new pin, received the lord of Strathfieldsaye. The smart and shining creature was in harmony with her surroundings. Everything in the spacious and lofty entrance hall shone with paint and polish, with new curtains, new carpets, new fittings, new furniture.
Mr. Munt handed his hat to the parlor maid rather roughly. “Tea’s in the drawing-room, sir,” she said, calmly and modestly. It was the air of a very superior servant.
Josiah went into the drawing-room and found two ladies drinking tea and consuming cake, strawberries and cream and bread and butter. One was a depressed lady in puce silk to whom her lord paid little attention; the other was much more sprightly, although by no means in the first blush of youth. She had the air of a visitor.